Death Riding
by krisetchers
Summary: During a graduation party, Goombella gets the vision of a terrible ride accident and saves others from fate. But at the third time at being cheated by a group of mortals, Death claims in each person in his horrendous acts. Can Death finally be cheated?
1. Chapter 1: Killing Insanity

**I finally came with this story, hooray! This is the sequel to Ripple of Cheating, one of my other stories. This story is a Mario/Final Destination (3) fanfic, like the others. I own a few of these characters, but some aren't mine.**

**The following story takes place in Las Vegas and in the ride Insanity on the Stratosphere Tower. If you don't know what that is, check google or yahoo or askjeeves for "Stratosphere Tower Insanity". It won't make sense if you don't know what it is. Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this first chapter of the sequel! **

**_

* * *

_**

**_Chapter 1: Killing Insanity_**

"Oh my gosh, that was so crazy!" called out Wendy, exiting the ride with her brother Ludwig. "Like, let's go again!"

Goombella turned and saw her friend Lahla, coming from the XSCREAM ride along with her other senior friends. They were all having a huge Las Vegas Party for their graduation, and a few people were invited to come. Her boyfriend to-be Goombario leaped up from the ride and made his way to the exit.

"You should have gone," said Goombario. "It was amazing! Nothing like Las Vegas without the Stratosphere Tower!"

"You know that I'm afraid of heights," reminded Goombella, holding up her camera. "I forgot that I need to take pictures for my Senior Scrapbook." She held up her camera to take a picture of Goombario.

"Then take me first!" said a voice from behind them, and it was no other than the obnoxious Poochy, the punk dog whom everyone hated. He flopped down in front of the stairway and gave a thumbs-up pose, and Goombella flashed a picture despite the fact that she never wanted to be reminded of him when she moved away.

"I can't believe someone invited him to this party," said Goombella in disgust, and she and Goombario laughed as they walked over to Lahla, Goombella's best friend.

"It's cool that they added the new side-cliff garden," said Lahla, the three of them made their way to a separate door, leading to a huge glass Green House which was literally leaning over the edge of the tower. Goombella tried to hide her anxiousness as they made their way to the end side of the greenhouse and peered below them, looking at the city a thousand feet below. The sun was setting beyond the far mountains in the background.

"Looking down makes me so want to go on XSCREAM again!" said Koopie Koo next to them to Steve, her boyfriend. Steve, the albatross-koopatroopa, was too busy reading the brochure at the entrance of the green house. Goombella set up her camera.

"Smile!" she said, and Koopie Koo wrapped her ipod around her arm, then raised her hand to signal a pose. Steve stretched out his hair just as Goombella took the picture.

"Let me see," said Koopie Koo, looking at the picture on the camera. Goombella noticed that there was a stream in the greenhouse, and emptied out where she had taken the picture. Koopie Koo had nearly fallen into the water.

"Steve's head is blocking most of the sun!" noticed Koopie Koo, looking at the picture. "Our picture looks so dark, although the sun is nearly setting."

Goombella decided to leave Goombario and Lahla behind and exited the Green House. It was approaching nighttime.

As she made her way up to the observation desk, she saw Dry Bones in front of a birthday celebration, who seemed to be cracking jokes to the little children. Dry Bones was always known to be the jokester in their classes, and was good friends with Goombella.

"Turn around, Dry Bones," she smiled, causing him to turn around, unaware of the red table cloth stuck to his shirt. Goombella took the picture just as he cleared the whole table of cake and soda, casing a mess and screaming among the little children. Other friends from their college roared into laughter, and Goombella left the scene quickly, looking at the picture she had just taken. It seemed as if the red tablecloth was a blast of fire, and looked at it closely to realize that it _did_ resemble fire in an odd way.

She saw Wendy and Ludwig, the Koopa siblings, standing outside the newly-created Stratosphere cinema.

"I want this movie, you dumbbutt!" whined Wendy, and turned around to see Goombella behind them. Ludwig seemed frustrated and looked at the movie posters, trying to choose the best one which they would both agree on.

"Pose for the camera!" said Goombella. Wendy her hands out to the side in exasperation, while Ludwig looked at the camera, his eyebrows raised in confusion.

"Damnit Goombella, I hate pictures!" stated Wendy. "Ludwig, choose a movie already!"

"None of these movies are worth the money, so be quiet," he told her. Goombella looked around and decided to go to the rotating arcade, knowing that Thomas Fan the goomba would be there. He had an addiction to playing and videogames, making him popular among people. But his IQ was a mere forty.

"They're really mismatched don't ya think?" said Thomas to Goombella. "Steve is all science and school career 'n' y'all that stuff, while Koopie is totally hip an' stylish. I reckon they'll never live to be married, but'll die together. I've heard that Koopie's before boyfriend use'ta be demented, but is long'a perished in an accident far ago." Goombella noticed someone smoking behind him, and she glanced at the 'No Smoking' sign next to the smoking person. A sight of irony.

"Tom, doesn't it strike you also that you seem a bit…dement…never mind," finished Goombella. "Just smile while I take a picture." Thomas leaned his elbow against an air hockey table as Goombella took a picture of him.

"Where have you been?" asked Lahla from behind her, holding a flagpole she had won from a crane game. "We're going already!"

"Where are we going?" asked Goombella, but she was cut off by Lahla, who lay on the floor with her right hand raised with the flagpole, posing in an unusual position.

"Let me guess," laughed Goombella. "You're posing for a picture." Goombella took a picture of Lahla, just as her sister Peeka appeared.

"Get off the floor!" she exclaimed, lifting her up. "What are you doing in the middle of the arcade? We're going to ride Insanity now!" The two boo sisters walked off hurriedly.

"Insanity is that ride thaty'all spin ya off the edge," explained Tom at seeing Goombella's confused face. "We all going, no hesintation 'bout it."

"But I can't ride that!" said Goombella. "I hate heights."

"Do you actually plan to do something else?" he asked her. "You have no choice."

Thomas had no choice but to bring her to the line of the ride, where all the others were waiting. Ludwig was playing his homemade harmonica and was quite bad at it as people booed around him, and Ludwig swiped them back brutally. She saw Koopie Koo, trying to take a brochure away from Steve.

"What does it say?" someone asked Steve. "What is this ride?" Others piped in and listened to Steve.

"Insanity," he read. "At 900 feet above the ground, this spider-like machine dangles riders at a newly increased distance of thirty feet over the edge of the tower and then spins in a circular pattern at approximately forty miles per hour. Two people for every double set at the end of each arm, and up to sixteen people can ride at a time, instead of ten like before."

Everyone was excited and anxious to ride, as the group of friends gradually moved down the long line. As Goombella moved forwards, she bumped into someone, causing her camera to flash and mistakenly take a picture.

"Sorry," said the toad whom she bumped into. "I wasn't moving up.

"That's okay," Goombella replied, looking cautiously at the ride. Goombario put his hand on her shoulder as they watched the ride move it's way off the edge, and spin dangerously over 900 feet. They could hear the people on the ride screamed with fun and enjoyment.

"I can't go on this ride," said Goombella, putting back her camera just as she finished taking a picture of Goombario. "It looks too scary." She kept on staring at the ride as it spun faster and faster .

"But it's fun!" said Goombario, as the machine stopped and made its way to the building and stopped moving. The people got off the ride, pleased and laughing with their friendsas they made their way to the exit.

"How about my camera?" she asked. "It'll probally fall out and kill someone below."

"I'll put it in the Belongings Basket," he said, pointing to a basket near the control panel. "Smile!" He lunged forwards and took a picture, while Goombella stepped back in surprise. She laughed nervously.

"Next sixteen people," said the ride attendent, as the others made their way past the rotating bar and into the seats, and were free to sit anywhere within the eight arms and sixteen feet. Ludwig and Wendy sat together, and in the arm besides them sat Thomas and Poochy. Koopie Koo chose the arm next to them along with Steve, and the other people took the rest of the seats.

"Where do we sit?" asked Goombella. "I can't decide."

"How about if Lahla sits with you," suggested Goombario to Goombella and Lahla. "I'll go with Peeka, you're sister."

"But I thought Lahla and I were riding together," protested Peeka. "Right Lahla?"

"I have to stay with Goombella, sis" said Lahla. "You can leave me, just sit with Goombario." Lahla and Goombella made their way to the empty arm next to Wendy and Ludwig, just as Dry Bones took the arm next to him by himself, with an empty seat besides him. The harnesses were lowered by other ride attendents, and soon enough they were all strapped to their seats.

"Hey!" complained Poochy. "This harness is too tight!" But the attendents already left the ride deck.

"Are you ready?" said Dry Bones to Goombella. "I'm ready for this!"

"Me too!" yelled Ludwig, and the other people aboard the ride yelled out in excitement, just as the ride started to move it's way off the tower slowly. The song "Killing Time" suddenly blared from the speakers.

"Don't worry!" said Lahla, seeing Goombella's fright. Goombella dared not to look below her as they made their way further away away from the building. She saw the others near her, laughing and looking below them.

"Goombella, good luck!" said Goombario from the arm across from her, just as the machine stopped moving in the air and, slowly, the arms started to spread. The sky was pitch dark with stars in the sky, and the seats were moved to a fifty degree angle as the arms started to turn slowly, then faster, until it was at its max speed. Goombella heard yells of fun in the tight blur, and she looked next to her at Lahla, who was laughing like crazy as they spun nearly a thousand feet above ground. She heard Wendy's high-pitched screams through the darkness along with the others, and Poochy's barking.

"Yipeeeeee!" screamed Dry Bones, looking below at the dazzling lights of the city. He was surprised at how high they were.

Back on the edge of the tower, a piece of the High Roller roller coaster had gotten chipped off and smashed directly onto the control panel of the Insanity Ride. The ride attendent and the people around it jumped back in surprise and shock.

"Whoooooo hoooooo!" screamed Koopie Koo, her hands in the air as the mechanism continued to spin. "Steve, this is the!---"

The harnesses of Steve and Koopie Koo were disabled, causing them to fall from their seats as the ride coninued to spin at full speed. Goombella froze, her eyes not believing what she had just witnessed. She was the only one to notice, just as she saw through the spinning mess that Goombario and Peeka were not in the arm across from her, but only the raised harnesses could be seen.

The control panel malfuctioned even further, and Poochy's seat harness was released suddenly, his body being smash against the other arms as they spun. Blood splattered among the spinning ride and onto the people in their seats.

The screams of joy turned into screams of horror and confusion as Tom was thrown into the air when his harness was unlocked, falling hundreds of feet below.

"Stop the ride! Stop the ride!" screamed Goombella, but nobody heard her as the entire machine device unhooked from the stretched part that held the ride over the edge. Like a frisby, the eight-legged machine struck directly into the observation deck below, shattering glass as the people in the deck watched in horror. The arm which had struck into the glass was the seats of Wendy and Ludwig, and blood was only seen at the edge of the arm, along with a horrific dissortment of two bodies. The other seven arms were sticking in the air, as two other people fell below, their screams echoing through the air.

Goombella screamed out in horror as Lahla suddenly dropped from her seat right besides her, screaming to her death a thousand feet below. Goombella suddenly felt her harness slightly move and knew that it was soon to be umbuckled, as she grabbed behind her in fright. Two more people on a separate arm fell when their harnesses suddenly snapped, as Goombella looked at the arm next to her and saw Dry Bones, his harness still on and his face full of horror.

"What do we do?" he shouted, looking at Goombella helplessly. "This machine is going to fall eventually!" A piece of a thin pipe from above suddenly collapsed from a device, piercing through Dry Bones' chest. He let out a choked gasp, as blood spurt from his mouth in a strange gurgle, as Goombella watched in terror. He slumped over dead in his seat.

Goombella pressed against her vertical seat, screaming helplessly. She was the only one left alive in the seats.

The entire machine, not being able to support itself with one arm stuck into the glass, broke away from the observation deck. Like roaring thunder, the machine plummeted towards the ground nine-hunndred feet below. Goombella was trapped in her seat as she shrieked as loud as she could, and then her harness suddenly let go, causing her to fall towards Earth, the disconnected ride falling right besides her at dangerous speed. The last thing she saw the lights of the city below.

"This will be great!" exclaimed Lahla, peering below them in excitement.

She was back in her seat, the arms of the ride not yet stretched out and moving slowly off the edge of the tower. She gasped and looked at the others around her in the other seats, only to discover that what she had just sawn was not real, but she felt, inside her, that it was a vision of their fates. The song "Killing Time" blared from the speakers.

"Oh no," she gasped, grabbing Lahla's hand. Lahla looked at Goombella and could see that she was near the verge of tears.

"Don't worry Goombella!" she said to her softly. "It's just a ride." Goombella cried out without warning.

"Get me off!" she cried, moving her feet frantically in the air. "Put me back, put me back!" They weren't far from the deck of the tower, and the ride attendents and the other people in line looked at her in confusion. The others were confused at her outburst.

"I SAID GET ME OFF!" she yelled, her eyes swelling up with tears. "Get me off! We're going to die!" Goombario had the look of fright on his face, and Lahla looked beside her at Goombella as the ride attendent slowly pulled back the machine to the tower. As her classmates looked at her in bewilderment, a ride attendent took off her harness and released her from the ride.

"Get off!" she cried to the others on board. "You're all going to die, I saw it!" Wendy and Ludwig exchanged nervous glances at each other, as Thomas looked at Goombella's eyes. He could see that something was wrong.

"Get me off too," demanded Lahla, knowing that Goombella was warning them about something. "Get me off this ride also."

"Stop holding up the ride!" yelled someone from the line, as a rude outburst of anger rose from the line. As the ride attendent went to release Lahla's harness from the conrol panel, an impatient person bumped him from behind and caused other buttons to be accidentally pushed as well. Dry Bones, Poochy, Koopie Koo, Steven, Ludwig, Wendy, Thomas, and two other unknown people fell from their seats simultaneously when their harnesses had been unlocked, and they fell to the ground in surprise.

"Hey, I wanna stay!" whined Wendy, getting back onto her seat. But the ride attendents didn't let her go back and pushed them away continuously, as Poochy tried to push his way against the people.

"You said to get off, so get off!" shouted the ride attendent.

"But I didn't get off!" complained Poochy, who was being pushed away to the exit.

"Just get off!" roared one of the large ride attendents, and Thomas was also unsuccesful when he tried to make his way back to the ride. Lahla looked at Peeka, who was still on the ride, and she motioned for Lahla to go on and take care of Goombella. But just when Goombella exited through the spinning bar door in a dazed feeling of horror, she realized that Goombario was still left on the ride.

"Wait, Goombario!" she cried out, and saw other people in line take the plae of the missing seats. Tears started to fall down her face as the ride made its way off the tower.

"Goombario! Peeka!" she cried once again, causing everyone to look at her as if she were crazy. Lahla pulled her away, as Goombella saw her last glimpse of the two people left on the ride. They were soon to be dead.

"What just happened?" asked Steve, seeing Goombella enter the lobby with Lahla. "Why did we get off?"

"What's your probem Goombella?" said Poochy in an outburst. "What the hell is your P-R-O-B-L-"

"Shut up!" yelled Dry Bones, casuing everyone to be quiet, even the hotel guests around them. "Goombella, tell us why you were screaming, and why you were telling them to get you off."

"I saw," she stuttered, keeping her tears in. "I saw the ride break, and I saw the harnesses come off and everyone was dying, and…I woke up to find us safe on the ride!"

"How did you have such a long dream," questioned Ludwig, "When during the beginning of the ride? You're wasting our time with your nonsense, it doesn't make sense!"

"Shut the fuck up Ludwig!" said Dry Bones

"You tell Goombella to stop making up stories!" he snapped. Dry Bones delivered a strong punch to his face without hesitation.

. Ludwig punched him back, and chaos broke out as Steve and Koopie Koo kept a distance away from the fighting people, but then noticed Goombella looking at the large observation deck.

"Break it up!" yelled a hotel manager, pulling the fight apart. "I'll call the police if you can't stop behaving." Ludwig reluntantly followed Wendy to a farther section of the large lobby, while the others scattered around.

The others gradually calmed down and sat in various places, waiting for the rest of their friends to get off the ride. Dry Bones looked over at Goombella, and could tell that something was indeed wrong.

Goombella made her way to the observation deck, fearing the worst that what she had seen was true. She hoped, to herself, that she was just going crazy, and the vision of the accident was all in her head.

Suddenly out of knowhere, an intense whooshing was heard. Everyone in the lobby turned to look at the observation deck and saw the eigth-armed mechanism fall from the air, plummeting to the ground below. Horrified gasps arose in the lobby like a ripple in a pond.

"No, this can't be," gasped Goombella, just as chaos within the people broke out, people frantically running about and shouting in shock. Lahla gasped out loud and screamed, as Goombella turned around to look at the others. Poochy seemed traumatized, and Wendy stood where she was, her mouth open in a shocked gape of disbelief. Thomas looked at Goombella, stunned, as they all eventually started looking at Goombella in fear, knowing that what she had seen in her vision had become reality.

Sixteen people were dead, and soon to be dead were twelve more.

* * *

**Thank you for reading everyone, and I hope you actually liked this beginning! Please review everyone, I'm looking for your thoughts and ideas for later on. I'll try to update as soon as I can when I'm able to.**

**Once again, please don't forget a review! The next chapter will arrive…**


	2. Chapter 2: Relieving Memories

**It's approaching midnight as I finish this short chapter. Please enjoy! Also look for a sentence which sounds like a death of a person, which will be a foreshadow of a death later on (something that sounds out of the ordinary if you know what I'm talking about).**

_**

* * *

**_

_**Chapter 2: Relieving Memories**_

Goombella turned around as Dry Bones knocked on hotel door, as she opened it. He was holding a mug of hot chocolate and a dish of scungilli pasta in his other outstretched hand. Although Goombella didn't want him to enter, she had no choice but to make him free to enter.

"I thought you would be hungry," explained Dry Bones, trying his best to ease her. He walked in and set the food on the table.

"I don't feel like having company at the moment," Goombella sighed, locking the door securely. "But I guess that talking is the best solution." She sniffed, and turned on the TV to reveal that it was 4 o'clock in the morning. The terrible accident had only occurred eight hours ago.

"You have to tell me why you got off that ride," said Dry Bones. "Did you see something? I mean, what made you so frightened to get off?"

"I received a vision of the entire thing happening," said Goombella, stuffing a piece of the pasta into her mouth. "Before I was about die from falling off, I was back in my seat with the ride about to start. I told everyone to get off because I knew it was true, and then Goombario…" Her voice trailed off, as she flipped through the channels full of buried melancholy

They sat down in silence, as Goombella kept on eating, her food continuing to be devoured.

"You don't believe me, do you?" she said suddenly. "I can easily tell by your face. I wouldn't believe it if I were you."

"I do," said Dry Bones. "It just sounds wild and…bizarre. I know that it's awful and strange too, but the fact that this situation existed is beyond ordinary."

"Me too," said Goombella. "And now Goombario's dead, along with other of our friends. Lahla is over depressed in the room next door because Peeka's dead too. So much for lasting friends and loved ones."

"I talked to her," said Dry Bones. "But the conversation ended quickly."

"That's what I supposed," said Goombella. "You were never serious in class, but you seem to adapt to a more different personality. What is this stuff anyway?" She held a piece of the pasta at the tip of the fork. "It tastes so good."

"I think it's a sort of snail pasta," said Dry Bones, grinning.

Goombella dropped her fork and immediately ran to the bathroom, and dumped the whole bowl into the garbage. She came back to find Dry Bones chuckling on the bed.

"That's not funny!" she said, taking a giant sip of hot chocolate. "Don't you feel depressed and shocked yourself of what happened last night? You should feel the same way, like the others are feeling at heir near-death approach.

"The others aren't sad," he told her. "I visited Steve and Koopie Koo to deliver towels, and they seemed all right and all normal."

"Why on earth are you delivering towels to them?" she asked him. "Did you sleep at all last night?"

"How could I?" he replied. "I'm too shocked and depressed at what had happened last night. And I didn't lose someone important to me." This was an indeed wrong thing to say and hurt Goombella like a chain going through her, but she just looked at him until she knew what to say.

"Please, I need to be alone," said Goombella. "Just by myself to think about this. And don't enter any more rooms, it'll make people suspicious. Good night Dry Bones."

"Well, good night," he said, and he exited the room quickly, taking the hot chocolate with him. Goombella sat on the bed, thinking of what had happened at the ride. She was actually in her dream, and felt pain and anxiety during the seeing of the accident. But it was all a vision which she imagined in her head.

The thought of Goombario filled her mind, but he was already gone and perished.

"The picture," she said quietly, and remembered that she had taken the last picture of him in her camera. She opened and reached into her backpack until she felt the camera at the bottom, where she had put it last.

Taking it out slowly, she then pressed the menu to look at the pictures she had taken at the dreadful night. Then she spotted the picture of Goombario, as she tried to keep her sadness from approaching her.

But then she realized something in the picture. Behind him, there was the insanity ride with the people boarding it who had gone before them, and the seat directly next to Goombario in the background had an empty seat with the raised harnesses. Goombella looked it closely, and realized in the picture that it was the only seat with no person in it. She was too tired to think, or support herself from eventually falling asleep on the floor, as she dreamt of Goombario still alive with her.

At ten o'clock, Lahla and Goombella had the urge to explore Las Vegas even more, despite the losses which had occurred the night before. The news about the Insanity accident spread around the city, making people deeply cautious about where they went. The Stratosphere Tower was closed down for the next month.

Goombella could see that Lahla was handling the death of her sister more easily, which was because Lahla's family had a myth claiming they would simply appear in another location when they were to die, because they were Boos, and because their great great Grandfather had been cast a spell by Lady Lahla, and spiritual person known long ago, which is now why and how Lahla was named. Lahla kept the odd family tradition theory in her head, and although Goombella believed it was not true, she never mentioned about it. They decided to sit down and talk at lunch for an hour, until they felt more relaxed and better to explore further, and into the Excalibur Hotel.

"Excalibur has all those medieval theme stuff," Lahla told her. "And really good food, except for Manchu Wok, which is also pretty good if you ask me. Look, it's Poochy. He's doing the 'Trick the Jester' game." Poochy was asking the jester to guess his age, and if the jester guessed it within two years apart, Poochy wouldn't win a prize, and vice versa if the jester's guess was off.

"I wrote down my answer, so tell me your age."

"Eighteen, you odd-hatted person."

"I guessed seventeen," said the jester, showing him the number on her paper. "I'm a winner."

"You lose!" exclaimed Poochy, spinning his collar chain around his neck. "You guessed wrong, so I get a prize! Sucker!"

"It's within two years apart," stated the jester. "You didn't win." Poochy stared at her in unreasonable disgust.

"That was a waster of money," he snapped, and he walked away as others around him looked at him strangely. Goombella and Lahla explored further within the exciting hotel, and took pictures with a talking metallic dragon, which actually emitted proper flames. They had ended up traveling further, and had walked down the streets for two hours on the Las Vegas Strip, but didn't stop anyway particular.

"I guess that stuff can seem better," said Goombella. "I thought that the whole accident yesterday was a step down when they died. I wonder if they would have a funeral."

"They're going to back home," replied Lahla, trying on a feathered shawl from a store. "We're leaving Las Vegas tonight at midnight, according to the others."

"Tonight?" asked Goombella. "I was expecting to stay a bit more."

"Let's go back to Luxor and try the Virtual Movie Theatre," suggested Lahla. "Or we could go to the IMAX 3-D."

"Either one is fine," said Goombella. "Everything is fine." Although she said that out loud, she never meant it. Nothing was fine with her at the moment, and as they explored the King Tutankhamen Audio Mini Interactive Museum, she felt that something invisible and unseen was following her, as the day approached 3 o'clock.

Death was planning his strike, but this certain strike would take care of more than one.

Two.

**

* * *

**

**I included the foreshadow ofthe future death/intervene death of someone, but it's only a small hidden thing that I put in. The next chapter will start the chain of deaths.**


	3. Chapter 3: Spa Shock 'n' Fire

**The third chapter is here! I've been working on this one for a while and finally got it correct. I hope you enjoy this one!**

**Note: First deaths of the chain start in this chapter**

* * *

**_Chapter 3: Spa Shock 'n' Fire_**

Koopie Koo made her way up to the desk and waited excitedly, as Steve on the other hand had no interest in the Oasis Spa, and was reading a Luxor magazine instead, not bothering to look up. A young noki in wet braided hair finally appeared and flashed a smile at the two of them.

"Good afternoon!" she said. "Welcome to the Oasis Spa, where we meet your stylish needs at the most efficient way. We have many assortments of relaxation choices, such as the spa hand massage, exercise area, intense-bubble Jacuzzi, mini tennis court-"

"Jacuzzi!" exclaimed Koopie Koo. "We'll go there."

"Then just bring those towels over there, and change into those slippers. I'll lead you down if you'd like."

"No," insisted Koopie Koo, glancing at Steve's jacket nervously. She wasn't interested by the jacket, but by what was under it. "Just tell us the way and we'll do it ourselves."

"Okay, that would help," said the noki in relief. "Go through that door right there, and follow the signs to the tennis court. At the tennis court, there will be sliding doors at the end of the court, which have a sign called Oasis Jacizzi. Enter the doors to the Jacuzzi."

"Okay, we know!" said Koopie Koo quickly but calmly. "We've been here numerous times already."

"Really?" asked the noki in surprise. "In that case, I will be in that other door if you need me. Once you're finished, please ring the button at the Jacuzzi side table, which signals that you're done---wait, you already know all this stuff. Please enjoy!" She exited through the door behind her.

"Whew, everything to ourselves," said Koopie Koo in relief, lifting away Steve's jacket to reveal a crate of wine, arranged neatly in a designed pattern. "Be a dear Stevie and carry this crate to the Jacuzzi."

"But we're not allowed to do that!" he protested, looking up from his magazine. "Unless the front lady said it was allowed. Did you ask her?"

"I did, come on! It's almost 3 o'clock, and we're leaving Las Vegas at midnight," she said. "And why the hell did Dry Bones give towels to us last night?"

"Don't ask me, I don't know," replied Steve.

As Steve carried the crate of wine, Koopie Koo led them to the Tennis Court and opened the sliding doors at the end of the court to reveal a medium-sized Jacuzzi, the water still and calm. Steve made his way to a stool near the water, and placed the crate of wine at his feet. Koopie Koo changed into her bathing suit quickly, and spotted a radio on a high shelf filled with rows of towels. What she didn't see was that the radio was off limits to hotel guests, and the shelf had been unlocked and opened by a careless spa attendant.

"What kind of music does this have?" she wondered, pulling the radio and the cord from the shelf. She saw a long foldable table against the wall and placed it near the edge of the pool, directly across from the other side where Steve was sitting. She carefully put the radio on the table, plugged in the outlet on the wall, and turned on the radio to reveal a low, monotonous Egyptian voice playing.

"Yuck!" she said, ejecting the CD. "What kind of loser would listen to that kind of music?"

"It's an informational CD on the past life of Egyptians," explained Steve, still keeping his eyes on the magazine and unaware of what Koopie Koo was doing.

"I don't want educational school stuff, I want music," she said. "I can't believe you're thinking of being a Super Senior. How come Steve, what will happen to me with no one to be free with me?"

"Koopie, maybe you should be a super senior too and take further college," he replied, as Koopie Koo shook her head in disgust. She searched through the CD and found the song 'Walk Like An Egyptian' by the Bangles. She pressed the number, and the song played.

"This is more like it!" she said, and stepped slowly into the Jacuzzi. Although the music bothered Steve, Koopie Koo saw down in the Jacuzzi and pressed the bubble machine dial, causing bubbles to intensely form and make the Jacuzzi a bubbly body of water.

_All the old paintings on the tombs  
They do the sand dance don't you know.  
If they move too quick, oh whey oh  
They're falling down like a domino. _

All the bazaar men by the Nile  
They got the money on a bet.  
Gold crocodiles, oh whey oh  
They snap their teeth on your cigarette

Foreign types with the hookah pipes say,

"Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh!" sang Koopie. "Walk like an Egyptian!" She started dancing while sitting down in the Jacuzzi, waving her hands in a rhythmic tone and moving her feet underwater, as she grabbed a wine bottle from the side and held it in her hand, shaking her head to the music.

As Goombella and Lahla were walking back to their hotel room, Goombella wanted to show Lahla something she had discovered on her camera.

"Lahla, look at this picture," said Goombella, showing her the picture of Goombario on her digital camera. Lahla looked at it, thinking she understood what she meant.

"I'm sad also," said Lahla. "I know Goombario meant a lot to you, like Peeka did to me when we were shop owners."

"No, look closely right behind Goombario," explained Goombella, holding the camera closer to Lahla. "The ride is about to be moved off the edge of the building and the seat arm right behind him has nobody in it, and the harness of that seat is raised."

"I can see that," said Lahla, examining closely. "It's just like…when he died."

"I know," said Goombella in a voice of confusion. "It's been bothering me all this day, and I know something is wrong with this photograph. It shows how he died, and maybe it shows how we all die."

"How we're going to die?" asked Lahla. "Are you kidding? You and I will probably reach ninety years old before we die from health conditions. Let's see the other pictures." Goombella moved through the photos to find pictures of all of them, but the pictures looked plain and simple to the both of them, with nothing particularly special.

"I must be over-reacting," Goombella sighed, scanning through the photographs.. "I think I might be going crazy from all this chaos, thinking that the photograph was predicting Goombario's death and…" But the was cut off when she turned to the picture of Peeka in the arcade, smiling and waving her hands in the air. Behind her was an advertisement against the wall, which said 'Insanity: Deadly but Worth it'.

"Walk like an Egyptian!" sand Koopie Koo, sitting and dancing in the bubbly, humid water. "Walk like an Egyptian!"

"I'm reading," said Steve, still keeping his eyes on the magazine. "Put down the volume and I'll be satisfied." She didn't listen and started to do an Egyptian dance while sitting stationary in the water. While picking up a hand mirror and looking at himself, Steve saw a shadow behind him, knowing it was Koopie Koo. He turned around only to discover that Koopie Koo was still singing in the Jacuzzi, and with nobody behind him at all. Steve was perplexed and puzzled, and cautiously went back to reading.

A breeze swept by the entrance of the sliding door and slowly began to open the slidable doors that lead to the Tennis Court. The sliding door opened enough so that a single tennis ball rolled into the Jacuzzi room, past Steve reading on the stool, unseen by Koopie Koo as it luckily made its way towards the leg of the two-legged foldable table. The ball hit into the foldable leg, pushing it back so that the rectangular table was at a slant. The radio with the plugged outlet slid its way down the slanted surface of the table, and to add gasoline onto the bonfire, the table was right at the edge of the Jacuzzi, set up by Koopie Koo was never taught about safety education in her classes. None of the two koopas knew this was happening, as Koopie Koo decided to turn the dial of the Bubble Machine to full power, despite the warning below the switch.

"That---that can't be a coincidence," said Goombella, her eyes full of fear as she and Lahla looked at the photograph of Peeka. "The ride advertisement is right behind her! Look!"

"There is definitely something weird with this," agreed Lahla in confusion. "How does the photograph show these deaths even though they never died?"

"I don't know," said Goombella. The camera suddenly flashed, and Goombella dropped it in surprise as it fell to the ground. She picked it up quickly, but then noticed there was a picture showing on the camera she never turned to before. It was the picture of Steve and Koopie Koo in the greenhouse, and as she tried to turn off the digital camera, it wouldn't respond, nor would the picture show another photograph. The camera seemed frozen.

"Look at this," said Steve, reading an article from a magazine. "A lady hit by a truck a month ago while crossing the street was believed to be under a strange curse. She died instantly, but this wasn't the only death. There had been a chain of events before her, with people dying in specific, unreal ways in a specific order. There's more to this article, but I find it boring.

"It's like we could die any second," chuckled Koopie Koo, still keeping in the beat of the music with her back facing the foldable table. "Tutankhamen's curse, lifted on people."

The radio slid further to the edge of the table, sliding, sliding, until it was near the edge to fall into the jacuzzi. The two of them still didn't realized nor spot the radio at the edge of the slanted table, but the radio was staying still unable to fall into the water because of the raised edge around the table. The radio settled on the edge.

"What's wrong with the camera?" asked Lahla. "Is it broken?"

"Why does it show Koopie Koo and Steve?" Goombella wondered out loud. "It's showing something about this picture."

"Are you sure about this?" asked Lahla. "Goombella, I think you have to calm down."

"No, look at this!" said Goombella, looking at the picture closely. "Steve's magazine says 'Space and Fiction', and he's covering the magazine and only showing the word 'Spa'. They're at the spa and in trouble!"

"I just can't do anything," said Lahla. "You can go ahead, but I'll go back to my room." Before Lahla could finish what she wanted to say, Goombella dashed off, sensing danger around the two people planned to be killed.

Since the bubble pressure was at full power in the water, water and bubbles overflowed and spilled over the edge of the Jacuzzi, making the ground slippery under the foldable table. Koopie Koo decided to play a trick on Steve and walked to the other side of the Jacuzzi, cupped water into her hands and splashed it onto Steve's head. Steve fell back in his stool in surprise as Koopie Koo laughed.

"That was mean!" said Steve in an annoyed voice. "My hair is all wet!"

"Use that hair dryer over there," said Koopie Koo, getting out of the Jacuzzi and bringing a salon hair dryer to Steve. She plugged the wire into the outlet and set it up.

"Just keep your head in there for a while and you'll be refreshed," she promised in a sweet voice. She hopped back into the Jacuzzi with another wine bottle in her hand, just as the leg of the slanted table was pushed back even more from the slipperiness, making the radio topple over the edge of the table to the water below. But it just hung there a foot away from the Jacuzzi; the cord wire holding the radio back from falling into the water.

Goombella made her way to the Oasis Salon, and seeing nobody at the front desk, she luckily chose the correct door and saw a sign which lead to the Jacuzzi. She hurriedly made her way to the Jacuzzi, but stopped to look at the picture on her camera. Koopie Koo was holding her iPod around her arm and her other hand raised above her, but Goombella noticed the small pond behind her, as if the iPod was in the water. She looked to see anything about Steve, and noticed something too noticeable and obvious. He was stretching out his hair with both hands, and the setting sun behind his head looked as if his head was burning up.

Steve settled his head into the hair dryer and locked the shift, and that was when he suddenly realized the radio hanging from the slanted table, directly above the Jacuzzi.

"Koopie!" he shouted. "Get out of the Jacuzzi!"

Koopie Koo turned around to realize the radio as well, but her actions weren't quick enough just as the plug outlet of the radio was pulled out by the weight of the radio, making it finally fall into the bubbly water.

Goombella ran into the Tennis Court to see the sliding doors at the end pf the court, and was overly shocked to see electric flashes visible through the slightly transparent doors. She ran over to the doors but was unable to slide them open.

"Steve! Koopie Koo!" she cried out in fear. "Can you here me?"

But she couldn't be heard over the electrocution of the Jacuzzi, as Steve witnessed his girlfriend being electrocuted in the water, the wine bottle in her raised hand glowing a deep red. Her body was jolting, making weird movements as her body started to brittle and change completely, leaving Steve in horror as he tried to free himself from the hair dryer. The wine bottle in her hand exploded, causing Steve to fall back onto the ground in the hair dryer, but still unable to free himself, both of his hands trying to push his way out of the hair dryer.

The electrocuting water splashed off the edge and into the plug outlet of the hair dryer, causing a spreading line of fire from the outlet which spread across the cord line and setting the hair dryer on fire. Steve's head started to burn.

"AHHHHH! HOT, SOMEONE HELP ME!" he cried, but it was a useless attempt of yelling as the electric continued to jolt in the Jacuzzi.

Steve yelled out in agony, as his head was being scorched under the blazing hair dryer. His hands were being burnt and fixed onto the hair dryer, as his entire face was set into flames, making him unable to breathe as he struggled to keep alive. He tried moving on the ground as his last attempt of survival, but instead, set the crate of wine bottles on fire and causing them to explode one by one, glass being shot everywhere in the room.

Goombella, who was desperately banging on the sliding doors and horrified by the screams and electrocution sounds coming from within the room, jumped back and ducked when pieces of glass shot and tore through the door, making it additionally dangerous for Goombella. She narrowly dodged a shard of glass, as she backed away and made her way to the other part of the tennis court. The Bubble Machine exploded from the electrocution, which got in contact with the control panel behind the wall. All the lights in the spa were suddenly shut down, leaving people in darkness and confusion.

Steven Wiser, shot with shards of glass and his face burning, managed to take his last breath of life.

Death relaxed, knowing that he had two less people to take care off. The original thirteen, eleven more to go.

* * *

**Well, everyone knew that Steve and Koopie Koo wouldn't make it to the end, so they were the first to die. If you've ever been to the Oasis Spa in Luxor, there is no Jacuzzi or tennis court because I made those up.**

**By the way to those people who reviewed (thank you people!), this is the last series of my Final Destination stories, and everything ends in this final story.**

**P.S. Thanks to those who pointed out that Goombas don't have hands, and Dry Bones and Boos can't die. But just think as if they were actual people who are just like humans, but in their own life.**


	4. Chapter 4: The Hidden History

**I hope you enjoy this chapter! **

**_

* * *

_**

**_Chapter 4: The Hidden History_**

Rain fell outside, and thunder struck. A speaker declared that the Flight back to the Mushroom Kingdom was delayed two hours. Poochy groaned out loud, playing with his necklace collar around his neck as everyone went up to the line with their luggage.

"Hello, seven passengers to Mushroom Kingdom," said the lady at the desk, taking and giving their flight tickets. "There is a delay for your flight, and instead of midnight, your plane will take off at 2:00 in the morning. Enjoy your day everyone, and please, drop your luggage at the luggage pick-off on the sixth floor."

After their long trip of dropping their luggage off, the seven seniors were free to travel where they wanted. They were all aware about the news of Steve and Koopie Koo, and only a few of them were deeply bothered and disturbed about it as they walked around the airport. But Goombella was the only one who understood what happened, and she walked around with Lahla, talking about what had happened when Dry Bones suddenly approached them.

"Goombella," said Dry Bones. "I need you to come and see this."

Goombella and Lahla both followed Dry Bones to a wireless network area, where computers were set up. Dry Bones had already swiped his money in and opened a search engine page, then typed in the word 'Blimp Curse'.

"I found this," explained Dry Bones. "Six months ago, a toad named Mush Rumberg had a vision of a blimp accident. He was able to pull some of the passengers off before it occurred and had ended up saving them, causing a break in the design of death."

"What does that mean?" asked Goombella. "It sounds just like what happened to me, like when I saw the ride accident and saved us."

"What happened," explained Dry Bones, reading from the article, "Was that they were supposed to be dead, and Death killed them off one by one in the order they were meant to die. Doesn't it make sense? It's just like us."

"How do you know that article is true?" asked Lahla.

"I'll show you guys," said Dry Bones, and he clicked the back button. There were other websites with the same tale, most of them hidden in special links to be concealed from the public.

"Steve and Koopie Koo died," he said, searching on the different websites available. "They were pulled off the ride."

"And then they were the ones to fall from the ride first," realized Goombella nervously. "They died first instead of anybody else."

"This is the history of the entire Death rift," said Dry Bones, clicking on a link, as the three of them read in silence, just as the clock struck one-thirty in the morning.

The Infamous Death Curse History; written by J. Hillsherry

**Though my research helped me through with this writing, I also used my own experiences to sum up my accurate theory, and with the help of others. It started with an investigation team called the M.I.T. who was searching for a killer who was none other but within their group. They were killed in clever traps, such as drowning someone in a locked bank vault and the death of someone who wore an attractive crown laced with a burning chemical. After a series of mishaps and escaping, the killer was known to be Koops, a killer on the rage of infamy. He died when the island exploded, and three people, Peach, Pennington, and Jolene, escaped in a helicopter back to Elvin Gadd's laboratory.**

**It was not known, but E. Gadd set up the entire situation as a simulation, which meant that Toadsworth hadn't died from the gunshot in the initial situation. However, E. Gadd designed Koops to capture the enemies and bring them to the secret passage to Neon Heights instead, but Koops was evil and wicked enough to actually kill the people, instead of fake-killing. But Luigi had survived the elevator fall but later on died from the explosion. **

**It was then brought to E. Gadd's attention that the "detectives" were actually killed, instead of being brought to Neon Heights. He invented the Dolansa Infinite T (a two-word anagram for something I cannot figure out), a machine to bring Peach back to a restored Rogueport and to revive the others by a clock. She revived the others, but because Luigi was still alive because Rogueport was restored, he quickly climbed his way in the elevator to the secret passage of Neon Heights and managed to survive, but had troubles in his way back to the Mushroom Kingdom to help the others, when he learned from a scientist that his friends would be killed for destroying a design.**

**The Death chaos starts here. Because the people were revived and because they were supposed to be dead, Death killed them off in a random order. Peach, Pennington, and Jolene interfered as well, because they were meant to die from liquid nitrogen and harpoons. They started dying in freak accidents, but could intervene their deaths, and then look for hidden signs to their deaths. Near the end, Luigi appeared, and Peach was able to vision a death of hers, starting the chain of premonitions later on. Koops had then appeared too by reviving himself, but then died the same day by falling off the balcony of a mall. At the end, Peach, DK, and Daisy were thought to have cheated Death, but everyone except Peach had died in a train accident a year later. Peach was able to dodge her death in the wreck because she had seen another premonition of the accident. She then put herself into a mental institution, but had also made a journal about her journey back in her castle.**

**On the day of the train accident, a young toad named Mush Rumberg had the vision of a blimp accident, and managed to pull people off. But they were supposed to be dead and started to die in the order they were meant to die. Mush used the journal of Peach to help him, which was given by E. Gadd who later died from choking on a bar of soap. Then they all started to die in the bizarre and gruesome ways by the acts of death, and they soon met up with Princess Peach in the mental institution, who had already dodged Death numerous times. Reluctant at first, Peach decided to assist them from her experiences. They discovered how that everyone in this situation had been involved in the death of a person in the previous situation. It ended with the death of Mush when a sign smashed the back of his skull, and then ended it a surprising twist when the princess was then hit by a truck out of nowhere. But as she says, Peach had a theory that the solution of cheating Death is New Love.**

**Note that this is the amateur writing of a person who knows everything, yet has no time for typing in an unsafe place full of dangerous objects, so excuse if my writing is a bit rushed. And I feel that this will happen again in another situation. Until then, I will stop typing.**

The three of them finished reading, a bit dazed and informed.

"How about the photographs I took?" Goombella said suddenly, taking out the camera in her pocket. She turned to the picture of Steve and Koopie Koo.

"The article written by the person never mentions anything about these photographs," said Goombella. "Look at the picture Dry Bones, it shows how they died. Koopie Koo's iPod looks as if it's in the pond behind her, and Steve's head looks as if the sun is burning it. Just as the investigators and news reporters described it." Dry Bones looked at it in slight awe.

"So does this mean," said Lahla. "That we're in another situation like Peach and the others were in?"

"Exactly," said Dry Bones. "This can't be a coincidence, could it? I mean, this photograph shows exactly how they died, no debate over that."

"Then if this is correct," said Goombella. "Who's next in the order?"

"You're the only one to know," pointed out Dry Bones. "You were the one to see the accident happen, not us. Tell us who died after Koopie Koo and Steve."

Goombella thought, and tried seeing the terrible vision in her head. It wasn't coming into her mind until she thought of the people who got off. Before the ride mechanism unhooked and struck in the observation deck below, two people had died. It wasn't Thomas, as she remembered the person being splattered amongst the other people.

"Poochy was next to die," said Goombella, opening her eyes. "I think he's next."

"What does his photograph show?" said Lahla, as Goombella flipped through the pictures on her camera and saw the picture of Poochy. Poochy had both of his hands up in a thumbs-up pose, and he had just flopped down onto the floor in front of the cabinet. Behind him they could see a flight of stairs leading up, with a person running down the stairs.

"Will a cabinet crush him?" guessed Dry Bones, looking at the picture. "Maybe that person on the stairs would come and kill him."

"I don't think so," said Goombella, knowing that Dry Bones wasn't being serious. "His chain collar around his neck looks as if it's standing up when he flopped to the ground."

"Doesn't it look like it's stuck in the stairs behind him?" said Lahla. "It looks as if the chain collar is lodged between the stairs."

"But what does that show?" asked Dry Bones. "He's not going to trip down a flight of stairs because f his collar."

"Maybe he's going to fall down the stairs and crash into a cabinet," said Lahla.

"Or maybe we're just wrong," said Dry Bones. "Think of it; this could just be a fucked-up coincidence."

"You just said a minute ago that it can't just be a coincidence," remembered Goombella. "Whatever this picture means, we have to go and warn Poochy. He's probably getting down our luggage to our gate departure, since it's nearly two o'clock."

"Where's that?" asked Lahla.

"It's on the sixth floor," said Dry Bones. "If this is real, then we have to hurry." The ran their way as quickly as they could to the sixth floor, not bothering to stop as they realized the airport was nearly empty, with only a free people waiting on each floor. They quickly took the escalators one by one to each floor, until they were able to reach the sixth.

Six. Death was planning a displeasing fatality.

* * *

**Will they be able to intervene Poochy's death, or would he be killed in the next strike? Please don't forget to review because I look forward to them! I will update as soon as I can.**


	5. Chapter 5: Decapichain

**Sorry if this chapter took long to arrive. I finally have it, please enjoy what happens to poor Poochy! (yes, I said "poor" Poochy (this means ('you-know-what') at the most) if you understand what I mean). Enjoy!**

* * *

_**Chapter 5: Decapichain**_

Lahla was the first one to reach the sixth floor and saw Poochy, bringing a cart of luggage towards the escalator while humming a repetitive tune. Goombella and Dry Bones appeared from the elevator and turned the corner to see Poochy, about to bring the cart down the escalator.

"Poochy!" shouted Goombella. Poochy turned around, as one of the luggages from his cart fell down behind him, blocking the escalator entrance.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "I'm doing the group a favor by bringing down the luggage, 'cause all that taxi driving work actually pays off in doing hefty things. The flight is leaving already!"

No, stop moving!" said Dry Bones in an urgent voice. "We need to tell you something."

"I said I'm okay! Okay?" he replied in an annoyed tone. "Look, I'm all okay!" He put both of his hands in a thumbs-up pose and back away to the escalator, just as Goombella remembered that exact same pose from his picture.

But instead of stepping onto the moving escalator, Poochy tripped over the luggage behind him. He and the entire cart fell backwards, the luggage falling down the escalator and over the edge below, as Dry Bones and Goombella immediately ran over to the escalator to see Poochy stumble down, until he settled down midway in a piling heap of bags. He seemed okay, as the elevator stopped moving. The cart had fallen to the bottom of the escalator.

"I told you I was okay!" shouted Poochy, staying in the middle of the motionless escalator. The three others were confused at how he had just cheated Death, or if hadn't been struck yet, but Goombella felt something approaching slowly.

"You made me drop the luggage all over the place!" Poochy complained. "You made---"

The escalator started to move again, this time much slower than before. But Poochy's head was suddenly pulled down, as the three at the top realized that his chain collar around his neck was jammed under the escalator, as it slowly made its way downward.

"Oh no!" cried Lahla, backing away from the predicament. Dry Bones and Goombella ran down the escalator in panic as they reached Poochy, who was yelping and trying to break free. Goombella tried to hold his body back, as Dry Bones tried cutting his collar with his sharp claws, but the escalator continued to move down even more, until they were approaching the bottom section where the escalator stairs repeated.

"Help me!" yelped Poochy, struggling to get out in terror. Goombella tripped forwards over the both of them with a scream when the escalator suddenly stopped for a split second, as Dry Bones kept moving back as they approached the end, still grabbing onto Poochy's collar in his best attempt. After a few terrifying seconds of struggling, nearly all of Poochy's collar was lodge under the escalator bottom, his body on the escalator and his head resting at the regular base, as the escalator started to struggle in continuing to shift.

"Hold on!" screamed Goombella, pressing the emergency button on the side. The escalator gradually stopped moving, and Poochy felt his neck slightly lodged under the escalator, as he whimpered out in bewilderment. Dry Bones was gasping in fear, as Lahla watched from above in panic. Suddenly, the escalator gained enough strength and moved one last time, and in this last, single movement, Poochy's head was severed from its body.

Goombella shrieked as she was sprayed with nearly a gallon of blood, and Dry Bones fell back in surprise, slamming into the metal cart behind him, a head in his arms as he frantically stood up and startedshouting in horror. Lahla just stood from the top of the escalator, backing away and screaming simultaneously.

"Judas Priest," Dry Bones gasped, standing with his clothes drenched with blood. Poochy's headless body was still staying on the escalator, the neck part jammed under the motionless escalator. Because Death was such a person who wanted to extend things, he made the elevator suddenly move back in motion, squashing more of Poochy's body as it was unable to go into the escalator. Goombella and Dry Bones looked away in shock, as they called the police immediately to the bloody scene.

An announcement was heard all around the airport ten minutes later: "Due to a fatal accident which has occurred, police and investigators will ask everyone to leave and evacuate the air port immediately. Our flight attendants will assist and lead you out. Please be aware that all the flights for today until 11 a.m. will be cancelled and are planned to be rescheduled later on." A few people remaining in the airport started to exit in confusion, until Goombella and the two others reached their friends.

"Poochy's DEAD?" exclaimed Wendy in disbelief, as they all were sitting in the empty lobby. "And our flight is cancelled? How can he be DEAD in only two minutes?"

"Listen, everyone!" said Dry Bones. "I'll explain what's happening. And even though you don't believe a word I say, you have to be quiet. We're under a sort of curse which---"

"I ain't believe 'n curses!" Thomas said out loud. "I ain't believe what you're going to say, no would I listen. All I reckon is that Poochy is dead for some darn reason and so ar' Steve and Koopie Koo."

"Three months ago," continued Dry Bones. "A person had a vision of a blimp accident and pulled nine people off the blimp before it occurred, just like Goombella did on our ride. That person had ended up ruining the design of Death, making Death angry and causing him to take all of their lives back in the order they were meant to die. This is the exact thing that is happening to us."

"And how do you expect us to believe this?" questioned Ludwig. "Do you really think we believe this is true, that we're all going to die?"

"He's telling the truth," confirmed Lahla. "We researched with him on the internet, and Goombella's vision is proving true."

"Faggot it," Thomas argued, who mean to say 'Forget it' but was never taught the proper way to say it. "S'pose this's accurate, then I'll tell death to just fuck 'ff my way and leave me alone. He ain't beatin' me." With that final statement, he got up from his seat and went off down the hall without turning back.

"Come on," protested Goombella. "You have to listen to us Thomas." He was soon out of sight down the long hallway of the airport, exiting through the spinning doors.

"It's getting really late," said Ludwig, grabbing Wendy's arm. "Now you, Goombella, go tell my mom that I'm being manipulated by a retarded Goomba to believe her story full of straight bullshit. Come on, Wendy, we're going out." He got up in frustration and walked away, as Wendy looked at Goombella, signaling that she believed her in the tiniest bit of way.

"We're the ones who believe you Goombella," said Dry Bones, as the three of them just sat down in the chairs. "We'll find a way to stop this."

"How can we stop this?" said Goombella. "We can't stop this, no matter how hard we'll try. We're all going to die sooner or later."

"Excuse me, but you have to leave the airport," spoke out an attendant with a black hooded sweater. They looked at him to see that his face wasn't visible, but only a dark shadow could be seen where his face was.

"I'm sorry," said Lahla as they all got up from their seats. "We thought we could stay a while and talk."

"The officials say…that, perhaps going elsewhere would work. There has been a decapitation death in this building around ten minutes ago, so staying here will give you…bad memories."

"Okay," said Dry Bones, a bit cautious and disturbed by the odd flight attendant. "Let's go someplace else, we'll check tomorrow for our new flight. Come on." The three of them walked off as the hooded flight attendant just stood where he was, casting an unusual shadow which loomed over the bare walls.

Because the Luxor Hotel was closed temporarily by the deaths of Koopie Koo and Steve, they decided to stay in the MGM Hotel until their new flight was rescheduled. The day passed normally, but with three people dead in three days with the additional ride accident, news spread rapidly within Las Vegas which made travelers more uneasy.

"Our new flight will be in a week from now," Dry Bones said that night as Goombella and he were eating at the MGM Grand Buffet.

"Hopefully a week is long enough," said Goombella, putting an amuse bouche into her mouth and tasting it slowly. It definitely was a "mouth pleaser", as the French would translate it. The delicious taste eased Goombella's mind.

"I printed out the pictures on larger paper, using the downstairs lobby computer," said Goombella, taking the enlarged photos out of her bag. She showed Poochy's picture, and they could see how it was shown: The stairs behind him represented the escalators, and his chain collar in midair looked as if it was lodged into the stairs behind him.

"Don't worry; we'll be backing home soon," said Dry Bones. He dug into his plate of food, as they ate in lessened worry.

But Goombella knew that Death wouldn't wait that long to finish them off. If Goombella wanted to save them, a week would be the maximum length.

A week was too short.

* * *

**I'll try to update as soon as I can! Sorry to Hip&Hop, I planned for him to diemuch earlier before.Thank you to my reviewers, please, I gratefully hope for reviews! I will update soon.**


	6. Chapter 6: Dreaming An Answer

**Enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

**_Chapter 6: Dreaming An Answer_**

"Did you know that this hotel washes 15,000 pillowcases everyday?" asked Dry Bones in amazement. "And there's also a rocky swimming pool somewhere around us."

"It's six days until our flight back home," said Goombella as they walked outdoors to search for the pool. "I don't think we'll have enough time, will we?"

"Of course we'll be fine," said Dry Bones, a bit uneasy on what Goombella was saying. "Why are you asking such a thing?"

"Before six days," said Goombella. "Death will already kill us all before we arrive at home. We need to find a way to stop us from dying."

"But we have six days," reminded Dry Bones. They spotted the rocky pool a distance away from them, and had no choice but to go there, knowing that a swim in the water would rest them at ease. They got ready and entered the pool, as Dry Bones swam in backstrokes and Goombella just splashed her feet in the water, sitting on the edge. She looked into the water, as something started to possess over her like a shadow.

She was on the edge of something, and fell forwards to discover that she was falling. Stories below was the ground, and she gasped as she discovered she was no longer in the pool, but in midair, about to smash into the ground. Closing her eyes, she expected to feel pain.

Her head rose from the water as she gasped for air when Dry Bones pulled her up onto the edge of the pool in alarm. Goombella blinked, but found that she was still back on the ground.

"Are you all right Goombella?" he asked. "You seemed unconscious while you were submerged in the water." He got a towel and wrapped it around her until she was well to speak again.

"I remembered I was falling of a building," said Goombella in confusion. "Then you woke me up."

"As long as we're okay, everything's fine," reminded Dry Bones. "Let's go back to our rooms now."

"But we have to save Thomas," Goombella suddenly remembered. "He was the one to die next in the ride."

After around ten minutes, Dry Bones entered Goombella's room to find her looking at the enlarged photos which she had printed out. He sat besides her and examined the picture in silence.

"Any ideas?" asked Goombella. "How is he going to die, if our theory is correct?"

Goombella had taken Thomas's picture in the Stratosphere Rotating Arcade. He was resting his head and arms against a rolling stool, while behind him were two air-hockey tables with the name 'Half-Aire' visible on the sides of them.

"Well, we know that words have to do with these," pointed out Goombella. "Such as in Steve's magazine, it spelled out 'SPA', and they died in the spa. A heiligenschien was forming around Steve's head, which means that body parts matter."

"So if there was a guy holding scissors in front of the person's crotch, then does that mean…" Goombella gave Dry Bones a look of disgust.

"Fine, I was just fooling around. Well, we obviously know that his death will happen in an arcade," added Dry Bones. "But is 'Half-Aire related somehow, such as being the name of a store or a place? Maybe it's a name of a certain arcade game."

"He's leaning against a rolling stool," added Goombella. "Perhaps he'll fall forwards into something because he'll roll forwards."

"How about that guy smoking against the wall?" said Dry Bones. "He's smoking a briar pipe, with the 'NO SMOKING' sign right besides him."

"A fire," suggested Goombella in slight alarm. "I think that perhaps an arcade machine would burst into flames, killing him."

"But there's just one problem," realized Dry Bones, getting up from the bed. "Where exactly is Thomas? He's the only one who didn't stay with us in this hotel, and wherever he is, it's probably in a place of games and entertainment.

"Why don't we ask Ludwig and Wendy?" said Goombella. "They probably know where he is." After gathering their belongings, they went into the elevator and traveled their intense way to the twentieth floor, and then made their way to the thirty-sixth room.

Dry Bones knocked on the door and found no answer. He knocked again in a louder tap but failed to hear anyone within the room. He decided to give the knob a turn, and was surprised to find it open. But on the bed, they were in disbelief to find two things, one of the things cut open, and the other all scratched up and worn, as if it had been there for overnight.

"Oh my gosh," gasped Goombella, as she made her way to the torn up pillow. "They destroyed a pillow! They're in serious trouble now."

"They deserve it," said Dry Bones, as he picked up the worn out note on the bed. "Hey, it's a letter to the maid." He read it out.

'**_Please, we are SOOO sorry about the ripped pillow. But we had to go in the middle of the night to help refurnish the Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum for a new job. Forgive us, and don't tell the manager about the pillow! We'll even give you extra tip! XOXO Wendy HugsnKissesSmoochSmooch!'_**

"They had to leave at the last second," said Dry Bones, dropping the note on the floor. "When they're next on the list, they'll have no rescue from us. Son of a bitches." They closed the door and made their way to Lahla's room, hoping she would accompany them.

"Why can't you come with us?" asked Goombella. "We need your help in saving all of us, and to find the design."

"I just don't have the guts," explained Lahla. "Poochy's death was very disturbing for me and very horrific. I can't live to witness another accident happen, and I'm beginning to think that Peeka is really dead, instead of being in some regular imaginary world."

"Don't think that," said Goombella softly. "We still can save us." After a minute of talking, Lahla finally agreed… to not accompany them in their search of a death cure. Goombella and Dry Bones headed straight to the taxi area and looked at the Directory Map of Las Vegas.

"I think I found it," said Dry Bones. "Circus Circus: A hotel with an indoor circus, amusement park, and arcade play place. I believe that that's where he is." After waiting patiently for a taxi, a black taxi finally showed up and closed in front of them. He opened the door with his automatic switch and looked at them in an eerie way, as the two looked back at him in hesitation. He was wearing a black sports jacket with a hood that covered everything other than his eyes.

"Step in," he said as they stepped in. "Tell me your final destination."

"Circus Circus," Dry Bones told him.

"Circus Circus?" repeated the taxi driver. "Are you _sure?_"

Dry Bones and Goombella exchanged glances. Were they sure that Circus Circus was the correct place, or was it the wrong location to find Thomas? Although they weren't 100 percent sure, they felt that Death was going to strike him next at that location.

"Just bring us to Circus Circus," demanded Dry Bones quickly. Without a pause the driver sped off in a hurry to their destination.

There was a concealed taxi window separating the passengers from the drivers so the passengers had more privacy to themselves, without the driver realizing or taking notice on their actions.

"Poor Lahla," thought Goombella out loud. "I think she's not yet coped over Peeka'a death, and neither have I over Goombario's. It's like the world and Death is turning against us."

"It wasn't just us," said Dry Bones. "Remember, a similar thing happened to a person three months ago, and he was in our situation."

"Who was that person?" Goombella asked. "Is he well-known?"

"I did some research by myself and found out his name; Mush Rumberg," said Dry Bones. "You're not the only one who received premonitions before"

"Where could we find Mush?" said Goombella.

"He died when a sign smashed him in the back of the head, remember?" he replied. The driver took a sharp turn, making them both fall to the side in surprise. "Princess Peach, the one who played a giant role in this entire dilemma, died around two months ago when she was hit by a truck." The blasting horn of a truck rang out in the street, making the two of them alert and amazed.

"A truck," said Dry Bones. "That can't be a coincidence."

"Do you know what intervening is?" asked Goombella. "I didn't quite understand it."

"Well, I researched that also," he said. "It's like, 'When someone is next to die, another person or the person him/her self can dodge the death, thus skipping the person and planting the target on the next person on the list.' As Mush said, intervening might not be good, because the next death might be more gruesome and painful than the one you should have suffered."

"It's like interfering with someone's death," stated Goombella. "It's like…hey! Where's the driver?" They glanced through the separating window directly in front of them to look at the driver, but they both saw that the driver was not in his seat, nowhere to be seen. The taxi kept on driving on its automatic mode.

"The car has no driver!" exclaimed Dry Bones, as their car suddenly slid into the other lane, causing other cars to narrowly dodge them and pull out onto the side. Goombella tried opening the door on her right, but her seatbelt was lodged under it and was jammed, unable to open. Dry Bones tried to open the door on his left, but found that it was locked.

The cab was starting to make awkward turns, as the two of them saw that right in front of them, the direction their car was driving, were a crowd of people on the sidewalk.

"Move out!" screamed Goombella. People on the streets were startled as the taxi moved onto the pavement walkway, then straight towards a wall.

Cracking and opening the separation window, Dry Bones hurriedly reached into the control manual of the driver's seat and unlocked all the doors.

"Get out of the left door!" he commanded to Goombella. He managed to dodge a wall by turned the steering wheel, making Goombella fall to the right and unable to get up. Dry Bones grabbed Goombella's hand and opened the left door, revealing a ground of hard concrete. They both jumped out just as the car hit right into a fire hydrant, making people around the area in surprise and shock as the taxi cab let out a loud siren. Goombella and Dry Bones were unharmed as they got up from the ground.

"That was close," gasped Dry Bones in relief. "But where on earth did the taxi driver go? And where are we?"

"I thought Thomas was next," said Goombella in confusion. They quickly left the scene of the crash, hoping that nobody realized that they had just jumped out of the cab at the last second.

"If Thomas was next, then we weren't supposed to die," realized Dry Bones. "That taxi thing was meant to bring us somewhere." They both looked up and saw a large building, with a glass Coca-Cola bottle on the side of it on another building, and M&M figures on the other side.

**_Gameworks Arcade_**

* * *

**Yeah, I probably won't update very much because tomorrow and the next three days from three days from now are four final exams, and today is Thursday 6/8/06. So nervous...**


	7. Chapter 7: Pool Slide Reaper

**Yes, I finished the chapter the day before my three-day exam torture! There is some violence and blood in this chapter, so be cautious. Enjoy! **

* * *

_**Chapter 7: Pool Slide Reaper**_

The sky was already dark and nighttime, as Goombella and Dry Bones looked up at the sign on the building above them.

"Gameworks," read Goombella. "So this is where Thomas should be, not Circus Circus. Death had caused the taxi to crash near this place."

"Does this mean he was helping us this time?" asked Dry Bones, looking up at the large letters. "If he has, then let's go."

"What gives you the impression that Death is a he?" Goombella said.

"Because I can't imagine a feminine character killing all these helpless people," he replied in his imaginary wisdom. "Neither could you, could you?"

"Let's hurry up now," insisted Goombella.

They both ran into the building immediately to see a tall rock-climbing structure nearly eighty feet tall, and saw people scampering around the place at their own enjoyment. They made their way further down into the crowded arcade area.

"He could be anywhere," said Dry Bones. "Where would he be?"

Goombella remembered. "He's always in a closed up area with limited people," she said. "Every time I visited him he's mostly there, cut off from the crowd."

"I'm guessing that he's in there," said Goombella, pointing to a door which said 'Smoking Permitted: Separate Arcade Room.' They both went inside to a wide open area, covered with smoke and arcade machines. There were virtual jet skis all over one side of the room which had actual moving and stationary jet skis, and hanging on the ceiling were pointy decorations which seemed to wobble the slightest bit. Goombella was correct with her guess and within seconds they finally spotted Thomas playing a Shooting Alley game.

"Thomas!" hissed Dry Bones. "We've been looking all over for you."

"What for?" he asked, shooting down a cat, obviously fake, down from a window sill. "I like this place."

"You're in trouble," said Goombella. "According to this killing dilemma that we were trying to explain, you're the next one to die." Thomas ignored her and shot down a (mechanical) lady from her stool, and she yelled and fell down when the stool rolled away.

"The rolling stool," whispered Goombella to Dry Bones, and she took out the picture to show him.

"Can't seem to 'nderstrand what ya talkin' about," he replied, putting the gun down. He saw Goombella holding the enlarged photo in her hands and grabbed it from her, looking at the picture in confusion.

"This's me, ain't it?" he said. "Why's me pictur' with y'all carrin' it?"

"You're the next one to go," said Dry Bones. "Ever since we got off that ride at the Stratosphere Tower, Death is stalking all of those who got off."

"Ok, if thes the-orie is true, than why ain't you next 'stead of me?" he told them, walking away from them.

"Because it's the order we were supposed to die on the ride," explained Dry Bones. "Goombella remembers that Koopie and Steve were the first to fall out of their seats, and Poochy…Tom, are you listening to me?"

Goombella spotted an air hockey table behind her, but discovered that it wasn't called 'Half-Aire' on the side of it. In the picture, there were two tables, but the room only had one.

"You have to trust her," insisted Dry Bones helplessly. "She saved you once, and she's trying to save you again."

"But I don't trust her no more, cause she ain't ma friend even from the start," said Thomas, causing Goombella to turn suddenly and look at him in surprise and hurtfulness. Thomas had never said anything so unkind to Goombella before.

Thomas just stood where he was, but then ended up walking away from them even further. Goombella saw numerous people around her smoking cigarettes, and remembered the fire smoking sign in Thomas' photograph. Something was reflected of the radio which seemed to be a dark shadow, which loomed across the room in an eerie fasion. Goombella gasped as it started to make its way to one of the jet skis, and began to float towards her.

Near the virtual Jet Ski arcades was a man lighting his cigarette, and Goombella noticed that on the side of the Jet Ski, there was the word 'Aire'. The shadow then reflected against the glass of an arcade machine, and Goombella turned around in fright, knowing that Death was soon about to strike at Thoams.

"Tom, just---"

"Leave me alone," snapped Thomas, pushing away Dry Bones away from him and walking in exhaustion between two pool tables. He took a stick from the side and laid it across the table, as he laid his head and arms on the pool table as well, revealing that the pool tables were rollable.

"Nobody botherin' me, nobody killin' me, nobody'll beat me," he said, stretching his elbows out carelessly.

Dry Bones suddenly remembered his pose from the picture with Thomas leaning against the rollable stool, but in this case, the stool was a pool table.

Goombella backed against the wall as the dark shadow suddenly appeared in front of her, her body trembling in confusion and fright. It suddenly seemed to disappear.

At the exact same time, the person lighting his cigarette dropped his lighter on the Jet Ski besides him, causing it to spark and let out a blast of fire backwards. Right behind the machine was an arcade machine, which fell forwards from the flare and pushed one of the rolling pool tables forward at full force into the other pool table, the one which Thomas was leaning against.

Dry Bones jumped out in an attempt of saving him, but he was too late as the pool tables collided with each other with Thomas in between them. He was cut in half horizontally, splattering blood all over the two pool tables. Goombella shrieked in alarm as people in the arcade ran away in fear at the commotion, with yells of horror filling up the room. The tables rolled away from each other to reveal a gory mess of the bottom half of the victim, and Thomas' top half was thrown against the wall when the tables smashed together, right besides a shocked Goombella.

Goombella started to cry uncontrollably, as Dry Bones hurriedly ran over to her and brought them both into the bathroom on the side, into the Baby Changing Room, leaving behind a bloody scene in the arcade.

"It wasn't our fault!" cried Goombella in tears and shock, washing her face in the faucet. Dry Bones, discovering that his clothes were full of blood, got a pile of napkins and wiped his clothes as best he could. He also felt fear and shock inside him.

"It's okay Goombella," he said in a shaken and calm voice. "We had no chance."

"But I saw Thomas in that exact pose in the picture," she sniffed, "I was going to pull him away somehow, but a shadow frightened me and I failed." She wiped her face and eventually calmed down, as the two of them sat in motionless silence sitting on the baby changing table.

"I know who Death was," said Goombella. "The shadow looked like the taxi man who had disappeared in the taxi."

"What are you talking about?" asked Dry Bones, washing the floor with drops of blood and sitting back on the baby changing table.

"Never mind," said Goombella wearily.

"You know," said Dry Bones, grinning. "We're sitting on baby crap, you know that?" He let out a chuckle of relief as the two of them discovered that the table indeed had some awful brown stains. Goombella let out a smile as the two of them exited the room, only to be greeted by a policeman.

"Excuse me," asked the policeman. "What were you two doing in there?"

"We were just…err…discussing about something," said Dry Bones quickly. The cop looked at them suspiciously.

"Well besides that, you must leave this scene immediately," said the policeman. "There's been a terrible fatality around ten minutes ago, and nobody is allowed in this building. I don't know how the two of you even got here."

Goombella and Dry Bones were escorted out, but they both caught a glimpse of how many investigators and policemen were there, plus the amount of smoke. They called a taxi and went back to the MGM Hotel, only to discover that Wendy and Ludwig were sleeping over at the Wax Museum to finish up their job. But Goombella knew that solving the puzzle would be in need of an expert.

"We need to find Jill," insisted Goombella suddenly. Dry Bones looked up from Tom's picture, just as he realized that the two air hockey tables Thomas was between represented the two rolling pool tables which divided him in a gruesome style. He also realized that it was already eleven o'clock at night.

"Jill?" he said. "Oh yeah, you mean Jill, that other girl who was in the blimp accident. How about Frank? He might know more information."

"I don't know about Frank," said Goombella. "The problem is, we have no idea where any of them are, and they sure aren't in Las Vegas at this exact second, and we can't take an airplane. They're probably all the way back in Mushroom Kingdom, but not in Las Vegas." She took a breath of bleakness.

"You're right," sighed Dry Bones hopelessly. "They're not here in this area, and we can't go back to the Mushroom Kingdom until…we solve the solution by ourselves."

But they were wrong. The two survivors from the blimp disaster were right in their area.

So was Death, but he was wandering around Madame Tussaud's to set up a painful scheme.

* * *

**Okay, sorry Tom! He was unfortunately killed in the goriest death so far because he deserved it. Also, I will contain a list of the so-far victims, with some of them unrevealed. (It's not in the Death order.)**

**Goombella **

**Dry Bones**

**Lahla **

**Steve**

**Koopie Koo **

**(unrevealed)**

**Ludwig **

**Wendy**

**(unrevealed)**

**Thomas **

**Poochy **

**(unrevealed)**

**(unrevealed)**

* * *

**I'll update as soon as I can.**


	8. Chapter 8: Informative Finding

**Whoa, how long did it take me to finally update? Anyway, just enjoy!**

* * *

**_Chapter 8: Informative Finding_**

After the two of them ate their breakfast at New York New York Hotel, Dry Bones went off to research more on intervening and the cause of Death's actions by hacking into the back computer room of the Houdini Magic Shop. Goombella tried to make her way to the Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum which was a distance away and tried calling the two victims on their cell phones hurriedly with no luck. She took the monorail train as her fastest way.

"Hello?" asked Goombella who had called the number of the Wax Museum. After a few seconds a lady answered the phone.

"Hello ma'am," replied the front lady. "This is the Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. How can I help you?"

"My name is Goombella. Are there two workers in your building named Ludwig Van Koopa and Wendy Koopa?" she asked.

"Come again?"

"The first name is Ludwig Van Koopa. The second name is Wendy Koopa. They're siblings."

"Ah ha, right here," responded the lady quickly, and Goombella could hear her flipping through pages in a book. "Ludwig and Wen Koopa are furnishers and designers in our new building section. Would you like to talk to them?"

"Yes, please," replied Goombella. She heard the phone disconnect from the lady, realizing they were passing under a tunnel. After a few seconds when the train passed the tunnel, the lady called Goombella back on her phone.

"Is this Goombella?" asked the lady.

"I'm sorry, I was cut off," explained Goombella.

"Well, anyway," said the lady. "They're out for lunch somewhere where none of us know. They don't seem to be here at the moment." Goombella held back a sigh of frustration.

"Okay, thank you," said Goombella putting her phone back into her pocket. She got off the next station and made her way into the other monorail from across her which took off in the other direction, and started her way all the way back to where Dry Bones and she had parted. Her job was to bring both of the Koopa kids back with her, but she was unsuccessful.

Dry Bones heard the magicians' footsteps heading towards the back room, as he quickly x'ed-out his page and hid under the desk behind a cardboard box. The magician was testing the string for his floating card magic trick.

"That's how they do it," Dry Bones whispered to himself. Suddenly his phone started to vibrate from Goombella calling. The magician turned around as Dry Bones quickly pressed the END button on his cell phone. After a few minutes the magician exited the room.

Dry Bones logged back onto the computer and went back to the biography of what seemed to be of Frank Briar, a survivor from the blimp accident. The info was extremely helpful, but the picture of him was shown before his certain accident with a metal chest.

**Frank Briar, Rebel and Survivor of Death's List**

**Frank Briar was a cheater and a victim of the infamous blimp accident who had been pulled of by his best friend, Mush Rumberg, the toad who had the vision of the fateful day. Although he was known for being the non-believer of the group, his sense rose into him later on at the closing stages. His addiction to smoking with his pipe caused trouble in a few of the deaths, but he had quit smoking the day of Peach Toadstool's death day. Now settling to a life away from danger, he and Jill Hillsherry, the other young toad who has cheated with him, are believed to still be on the list. Frank had recently had his eighteenth birthday a few days after Peach's death, the same day that the father of Mush had died.**

At this sentence Dry Bones stopped. He had read somewhere that Mush's father had been suddenly taken of the list, which he hopefully could use to investigate a way Mush's father had cheated Death. But it turned out that he didn't cheat Death after all.

**He had moved away from his destroyed home to settle in San Francisco, but is now believed to be living in Las Vegas. **

Dry Bones' eyes widened at this statement.

**His whereabouts are currently unknown, but investigators believe he is living a quiet and non-smoking life at a cheap hotel, most likely in Motel 6. He is trying his best to stay away from any possible danger. If you would like to email Frank, please email quitter(underscore)fb at hotmail dot com, although people think that he never replies.**

"Las Vegas," repeated Dry Bones, not believing what the biography said. "It says he's in Las Vegas." He rolled his way in his chair to the desk next to him and pulled open the drawer, searching for a Las Vegas guide for Motel 6.

After a few minutes of researching, he finally memorized the location of Motel 6. He then went back to his search engine page and checked for a news article of Mush's father, and was grateful to find an article about his death which was posted on a news website.

**Carl Rumberg, 45, Dies in freak accident**

**A toad named Carl Rumberg has died today on January 13, a victim believed to be in the popular blimp curse with other people involved. His beloved car was left rolling down a hill from a malfunctioned break chasing Carl down the street, and he tried his best to run away from the non-stopping car. The Jaguar eventually hit him and sent him flying into his favorite lawnmower, a prize possession of his, and he was impaled by the handle, which caused the lawn mower to turn on its power and partially tear his face. Two people whom we were hoping to interview, the two members of this same blimp curse, were not found by authorities. This accident was seen by a few neighbors and has touched them emotionally, knowing that the Rumberg family is no longer alive. It is known that all members had died from other, bizarre freak accidents.**

Goombella exited off the monorail train and headed towards the New York New York hotel, unaware of Dry Bones' discoveries. A wave of falling swept through Goombella, and she once again pictured herself falling from the edge of the building. She gasped as she was suddenly caught by two hammer bros.

"Are you all right?" asked one of the hammer bros, setting her back to her feet. "You seemed as if you were fainting, so we caught you in the nick of time."

"I'm okay," replied Goombella. "I just felt a bit dizzy." The two hammer bros were dressed up in sparkling suits, and Goombella assumed they were in a hurry to reach a show or dinner party when she saw that they were also holding huge suitcases.

"Well, I guess you'll see us later," said the other hammer bro. "We're the Comedians Brothenians and we'll be holding a show tonight at seven thirty." He winked at her. "I hope you're coming, you dazzling mistress."

"Thank you," she replied, walking off to finish her own business. She finally reached the Houdini Magic Shop and saw Dry Bones, waiting at the entrance of the store with various razors in his hands.

"Razors?" gasped Goombella, backing away from Dry Bones in surprise.

"Goombella!" he said, stepping closer to her. She realized that he wasn't holding any razors in his hands but printed papers from the computer. "Let's go, shall we?"

"What's that?" she said, pointing to the papers he was holding.

"Oh, these?" he asked. "I'll tell you in the monorail train. Do you have Wendy and Ludwig with you?"

"No, I couldn't find them because they were out for lunch," she said. "Let's go now."

During their ride in the train, Dry Bones showed and explained all the paper and info he had discovered to Goombella, and told her that one of the survivors, Frank Briar, was coincidentally living in Las Vegas.

"It seems too much of a coincidence to me," she said. "But I'm happy we could get help."

"Oh, and remember when we were discussing about how Mush's father cheated Death?" said Dry Bones. "He didn't. It turned out that he was killed a few days Peach was."

"In what way?" asked Goombella, knowing that his death would be gruesome.

"It said that two of his favorite items killed him," explained Dry Bones, reading from the paper. "His car was running down the road by itself, and flung him into a lawnmower, piercing him." He put the paper down and realized the shocked expression on Goombella's face.

"Yeah, and it ended with his face beingdestroyed in a horrific way. Too bad we couldn't meet him."

"Next stop, Stop 67," the speaker called out. "Please exit through your right." The two of them stepped off the train and went down the stairs, then asked a train attendant where Motel 6 was located.

The motel was very cheap, unlike all the other hotels around it. It was only popular to the people who were living here or people who hated to spend money on worthless luxury in expensive hotels.

"Can we visit a person named Frank Briar?" Goombella asked the front manager. The manager didn't reply.

"Hello?"

"Unless you know him, I won't let you see him," replied the manager, holding up a newspaper which covered his entire face.

"We have some important news that has to be delivered," said Dry Bones urgently. "We-"

"Nope, I need proof," the manager replied, still not lowering his newspaper. "Otherwise he's probably not interested in seeing anybody at the moment, and I would know that."

"But we _need_ him," said Goombella desperately. "We need his help."

"Oh?" asked the manager, slightly lowering the newspaper. "And what kind of help is this?"

"We're going to die," said Goombella. "Please, I know it sounds crazy-"

"It doesn't sound crazy to him at all," he said, and he finally lowered down his newspaper to reveal his face. His face was burnt on the right side severely, and a scar was placed over his right cheek, caused by an excessive burn. His face was disfigured, and so was his neck, and parts of the rest of his body. Goombella and Dry Bones just stood their ground in surprised shock.

"Yeah, yeah, guess who I am?" said the manager of the motel, lifting himself from his seat. "I'm Frank Briar."

* * *

**It's Frank! Hahaha, what will happen in the next chapter?**

**Thank you readers for the reviews because they were really helpful, and to that guy who realized that Tom Fan was in Chapter 7 of Ripple of Cheating, wow! How the heck you'd know that! Thanks to my reviewers! Oh, and please review if you feel like it. **

**I guess that emailing Frank a knowable question is the best idea. Be warned that he's always tired, and he gets ticked off once in a while.**


	9. Chapter 9: Waxing Anxiety

**I was in Indianapolis to see the F1 Car Racing, so I finally arrived back to finish this chapter. I hope it isn't too rushed! Enjoy please!**

* * *

**_Chapter 9: Waxing Anxiety_**

"Frank?"

"Why do you need me? Your appearances scare me too much," he said. "I don't know why you'd, I mean you've, wasted your time on coming here to this hotel." Dry Bones, glanced over at the picture of Frank Briar and could see that the picture and Frank were both the same person, yet Frank's face was disfigures and ruined.

"But I thought you would help us."

"I don't like helping people," he said. "I'm too tired."

"But are you off of Death's list?" asked Goombella. "Or are you in danger still?" Frank picked up his mug and took a long sip of iced and sat back down, without even replying to Goombella's question.

"Us and our friends escaped from a ride," said Goombella. "I had the premonition and we cheated Death, and we tried to find help."

"Did you say ride?" suddenly asked Frank. "What ride?"

"It was the Insanity ride on the top of the Stratosphere Tower. You know, the one all over the news," said Dry Bones, seeing a look of uneasiness on Frank's face.

"That ride," Frank said, in a voice so soft that they had to lean in to hear him. "I swore that I got off that ride because someone was too scared to go through with it. Was that…you?"

"I think it was," said Goombella, and both Dry Bones and she exchanged glances.

"Crap," he groaned. "Don't tell me that Death has targeted me again. Even though I escaped once doesn't give him the right to kill me once more, I mean again."

"So you were on that ride with us?" asked Dry Bones in disbelief. "That's incredible."

"Incredible?" demanded Frank. "I'm going to die again! My legs are shaking!"

"Did you have pictures?" asked Goombella. She took out a few of her photos from her bag of the first few victims and showed them to him. He shook his head in confusion.

"Look at this picture," she explained, showing him the picture of Koopie Koo and Steve. "She died when a radio fell into a Jacuzzi. In this picture she's holding an iPod in front a pond. This guy," she pointed at Steve, "Had his head burned by a malfunctioning hair dryer. The sun sees to be burning his head in the picture."

"A heiligenschien," said Frank softly, and snapped back to his conscience. "Nope, sorry. Instead of pictures we had clues all over the place when it was someone's turn to die, like the music or such as a peculiar shadow. But I have to admit that your situation is better. Pictures could be fun to look at and guess the clues. Could you show me the other one?"

Dry Bones reluctantly handed him the picture of Poochy, and Frank immediately studied it in interest. After around thirty seconds he finally guessed.

"Did the guy strangle with his collar while going down stairs?" guessed Frank. "Or did he break his neck somehow?"

"You're close," said Dry Bones. "He got decapitated when his chain got lodged in an escalator."

"That's impossible!" exclaimed Frank. "How can someone die like that?"

"You should know also from your blimp situation," replied Dry Bones. "Death kills people in weird ways, and he died when the escalator brought him down to the bottom, and suddenly gained life once more, forcing pressure on his head and killing him."

"Did blood spray on any of you?" Frank asked, grinning. "That's the best part." He reached over and grabbed the next picture from Goombella's hands, the picture of Thomas in the arcade. But after a few seconds Frank suddenly looked dumbstruck and baffled.

"Hey, that's me!" he said in surprise. "I'm in the background of the picture! But I'm smoking!" The two others looked over at the picture, and saw that indeed Frank was the smoking person in Thomas' photograph. They were surprised as well, but would be more surprised at Frank's next statement.

"I…I quit smoking two months ago," he stuttered in confusion. "I remember being in the arcade, but I swear to mother fucking god damn son of a bitch that I was never smoking!"

"Shush," said Goombella, not knowing why Frank had to announce all that profanity. "I think this is something that Death had made, probably a sign of something that would affect you maybe, like in the future?"

"Or maybe I'm overreacting," said Frank. "Leave me alone now, I'm too tired. I don't know why it shows me smoking on my pipe in the picture, but you guys have to leave."

"Why?" asked Dry Bones. A few seconds later the doorbell for outside of the door rang, and Frank hurriedly started to clean his desk.

"Hello, Lakister Arrêter Devoursé?" called a lady voice from outside. "I'm the prostitute for the deaf people whom you called to come over."

"What?" hissed Goombella in a disgusted voice. "Frank, that's sick. You're not deaf and your name isn't Lakilester something."

"Too bad," grinned Frank. "Now exit and leave me alone. Have I mentioned that I cheated Death not once but five times!" He chuckled as he made his way to the door.

"If it weren't for your friends you wouldn't have made it," reminded Dry Bones. "Not at least past your first intervene."

"Where's Jill?" asked Goombella quickly, but Frank made a threatening motion to them, signaling for them to leave immediately. The two of them went out the other way in failure.

"Good evening madam," said Frank in a majestic voice, grabbing the prostitute's hand in a flirty way.

"What?" she asked in surprise. "I thought you were deaf! Deaf people can't talk!" Goombella walked too far away to hear the rest of the messed-up conversation from inside the motel.

"Well, you were right," said Dry Bones in frustration. "Frank was really unhelpful. I can't believe he hired a hooker."

"But we can't forget about Wendy and Ludwig," she reminded him. "We still have our responsibility."

The two of them walked quickly to the monorail train as fast as they could, and made their way to the Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum by hitchhiking in a car. As soon as they reached the museum, it was approaching nine at night, and people were already exiting the building.

"What time does it close?" asked Goombella anxiously. "Can we still enter?"

"It closes now," said Dry Bones in disappointment, seeing a sign with the schedule. "But we'll still get in."

"How?"

"Just tell the front lady that you have to visit Wendy and Ludwig," Dry Bones told her. "She'll probably remember you." Goombella nodded and entered the museum. Around a minute later she made her way out to Dry Bones.

"Yeah, it's okay," she said. "She told me that Wendy told us to come over when she was told about me wanting to come by the lady. Both of us can see them."

"That's perfect," said Dry Bones, and they both entered the museum, going through a side door to take a shortcut to the 'I Love Lucy' section of the wax museum, where they soon found Wendy and Ludwig working. Wendy was enjoying her time, painting the right designs, such as hearts and flowers, on the side of the pink shelf and on the walls. Ludwig seemed to be in an unfathomable mood as he tried to put a lamp together, but didn't seem too angry at that second. Wendy was the first to notice them as she looked up.

"Oh," she said in surprise. "Hi guys, glad to see you here." She finished up painting her rainbow on the wall and took off her leather smock, then dropped down the long hook rail she was holding onto the floor.

"Wow, what a surprise," said Ludwig. "Are you guys working here also, or are you trying to disrupt our work?"

After three minutes of describing how the design of Death worked and how they were trying to save them from Death, Dry Bones and Goombella were stopped by Wendy, who seemed to be interested and listening carefully.

"Sorry I was acting like a jerk the other days for not believing you," she apologized. "It just seemed unlikely and stuff, but I researched myself about the blimp accident too."

"You believe them?" asked Ludwig, raising an eyebrow at Wendy.

"Yeah, sort of," she replied sheepishly, but then spoke more against him. "What would you think Ludwig? Look at the others who died in the order Goombella is telling us from her premonition. And plus, the ways they DIED were not ordinary."

"The photograph," suddenly remembered Dry Bones. Goombella took it out from her pocket and looked at it for anything unusual or conspicuous.

"Okay," said Ludwig. "For example, if this was true, who would die next? Wen or I?" They all looked at Goombella.

"You both died at the same time," said Goombella. "But I'm positive that one of you died before the other, but I couldn't tell with the glass all over." Ludwig continued to go on with his talking, as Goombella studied the picture carefully.

Both Ludwig and Wendy were in front of the small movie theatre inside the Stratosphere Tower. Ludwig had that same blank, raised-eyebrow expression, while Wendy had her hands out to her sides in frustration. The floor had red marble tiles.

Thinking that Wendy might be the one to possibly go first, she studied everything around her in the photograph. Her head was slightly turned away, and she was standing next to a table and stool with a Koopa Troopa eating a hamburger. Above her was a neon light with the words 'Stratos-Movie Cinema'. Not knowing how the Koopa Troopa and the hotdog would represent her death, she looked at Ludwig in the photograph.

"So what if you commit suicide right now?" Ludwig said to Dry Bones. "Then will Death be destroyed because his damn design is totally ruined out of order? Come on, if---"

"You're being an asshole, but go on," sighed Dry Bones, following him back to a wooden table Ludwig was fixing.

"Then maybe the design will be defeated," explained Ludwig, banging the table with a hammer. "Maybe you should try killing yourself right now and save us."

"That's already been proven impossible in the past situation, so that's not it."

"Ugh, damn," he grumbled. "Then you three are going crazy. Give me a hook hand so I can defend myself."

Goombella realized that there was a flower pot between the two of them in the photograph, but next to Ludwig was a poster for 'House of Wax', with the poster turned 270 degrees to the right.

"This represents the wax museum, most likely," she whispered to herself. "But what is the flower pot for?"

"Listen," argued Wendy to her brother. "Even if you don't believe us, we'll be the ones to live out through Death's targeting. You'll die first if you don't believe this."

"What if you die first?" Ludwig replied sharply. "Or, why hadn't Death struck in the past hours instead of now?" He pushed his wooden table against the shelf, making sure it was practical and fixed. Wendy rolled her eyes and went back to fixing her 'I Love Lucy' section, as Dry Bones tried to talk common sense to Ludwig, and Goombella studied the picture more, about to discover the true meaning of the photograph.

When Ludwig had pushed the table against the shelf, a pepper spray can on the top board started to roll from the sudden push, and gained more momentum as it fell down a stairs of plywood on the top of the shelf. It was nearing the edge, but was then blocked by a row of books. The numerous books started to push down towards the edge, with a flower pot placed directly on top of them.

"House of Wax," thought Goombella. She remembered the movie, where innocent victims were covered in wax by gruesome people. And she realized that Death's way of clues involved ghastly images, this one the waxed woman.

"Ludwig!" she cried, seeing a flower pot fall from the top of the shelf along with a row of books. The pot smashed across the floor, startling Ludwig and Dry Bones as they both fell down to the hard floor. Goombella saw a dark shadow loom over the lamppost, which suddenly swerved and struck into a vat, puncturing a hole and making hot wax spray directly at Ludwig like a hose.

"AHHHHH!" he shouted, his skin burning with pain as wax sprayed over his rough body. Dry Bones got up and quickly picked up a board of plywood over the opening, and attempted to hold the wax from spraying further by blocking the hole, as Goombella panicked as she tried to get Ludwig out from the sticky wax. He was yelling in pain, as Goombella tried her best to pull him out of the way.

The plywood broke in half, causing a giant hole to be formed into the vat as gallons of hot wax poured out within the room. But Goombella had already got Ludwig to his feet, and trying to run for her own safety along with the others.

"Get away from the wax!" shouted Dry Bones, as the four survivors tried to make their way to the emergency exit door. Goombella looked behind her to discover that the hot wax was melting immediately to the floor, fortunately. But she bumped right into Ludwig, who tripped with his waxy feet into Wendy, and caused them to fall in a piling heap of people on top of one another. The room was all silent as a strong sizzling sound was heard as the wax settled down, not spreading any closer to the protected people, in this case, three and one dead. Dry Bones picked up Goombella in relief, knowing they had saved Ludwig from Death.

"The poster for House of Wax was in his photograph," she gasped as she hopped back to her feet.

Ludwig, still covered partially in wax but currently fine and sticky, got up to his feet as well and shook his sister, who was laying directly face down.

"Wendy, get up!" he said, but stood still and horrified, backing away from her on the floor as he realized his clothes were full of blood. Alarmed gasps started to pour out of his mouth as he quickly covered it with his hand. Goombella stepped away as she realized what had happened, as Dry Bones stood motionless, stunned.

Ludwig had knocked Wendy down, and the back of her head was thrust down into the end of the long hook rail on the ground, which was covered in colorful flowers which were now useless in brightening the situation. Two bloody hooks stuck out from her dead body, one through her neck and the other impaled through the back of her head, the larger hook pierced through her punctured eye and the smaller hook jabbing out from her forehead, right under her bowtie, both her hands to her side in the same pose from her photograph.

Goombella suddenly saw her own hand change into a shadowy shade, as she gasped in alarm and horror, only for Goombella's hand to change back to normal. She looked at her hand in surprise, then at the dead body in front of her in fright and terror, with mixed feelings going through her body at once.

Ludwig screamed, his body trembling in disbelief. Another victim was dead.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! I bet that nobody out there had any feelings for Wendy when she died, except for the characters in the story. Please review possibly! I will update as soon as I can. **


	10. Chapter 10: Designed Journey

**This is the tenth chapter, please enjoy!**

* * *

**_Chapter 10: Designed Journey_**

The following cuts to the next morning at seven o'clock. After a long interview with investigators and detectives, Goombella and Dry Bones were allowed to leave only if they were to come back the following day for more interviews. As they were outside alone in a lone part of a hotel, Goombella took out the photograph of Wendy to show her death clue.

"The bottom of the movie sign poster has hook supporters, pointing right behind her head," explained Goombella in misery. "I was too ignorant to see that."

"No, don't say that," said Dry Bones. "We tried our best, and you saved Ludwig at least."

"I shouldn't have," she muttered. "Ludwig is such a dork. Wendy was just starting to believe all about Death when she was killed suddenly." She sighed and looked around her, trying to figure out where to go next. It was already Tuesday morning, and their flight would leave at the night of Friday.

"We'll find Jill," said Goombella. "I bet she was on that Insanity ride along with Frank too."

"Why do you think that?" Dry Bones asked.

"Because it makes sense," she explained. "But let's go find her before it's too late. I heard she was in an academy, so probably an academy in Las Vegas."

"We'll hope for the best," said Dry Bones. Like always, he used the computer in a Computer Pay Place without paying and searched for academies in their area, with Goombella at his side thinking about Lahla and her picture.

"There's an academy the closest to us called the Big Brain Academy," said Dry Bones. "But I don't think she's there."

"Try checking the list of faculty members for each one you see," suggested Goombella. "Look for Jill Hillsherry."

"Jill Hillsherry," he repeated. He soon found a list of all the academies in Las Vegas and clicked on each one to find their members working in each academy. Meanwhile, something was bothering Goombella about the day before.

Right after Wendy's death, her hand had changed into a dark shadow of some unknown sort. She had felt different, in an evil way of pleasure of what was in front of her. The feeling was too strong at that moment the night before, but she could clearly recall it at that moment.

She had felt pleasure in Wendy's death.

Then she was falling down, down to the Earth and to the glistening ground below. She was having the exact same falling vision that she was receiving for the past days. Falling, falling, falling…

"Death!" gasped Goombella suddenly, causing Dry Bones to look at her in surprise. She was sitting in her chair in the Computer Pay Place.

"Are you okay Goombella?" he asked cautiously.

"I'm just recovering from Wendy's death, that's all."

"I know it was very bad," said Dry Bones. "But I know something that'll make you happy."

"What?"

"Five minutes to get rid of it!" he chuckled.

"Stop it!"

"Fine," he replied. "I found out that you were correct and that Jill Hillsherry is in an academy called Degree Effluence at Trihydrate H20, which is around twenty minutes from here."

"You found that already?" asked Goombella in amazement.

"Already?" he asked back. "I don't think forty-five minutes was really quick, do you?" Goombella shook her head to clear her mind up from her dizziness, and followed Dry Bones to his car, which he had just bought when they were released by the police. Feeling positive and excited to finally meet another experienced person, Goombella relaxed her mind. What if Jill knew the solution to Death's design?

"I think she's a water maniac," added Dry Bones. "She was the head master of the Water Department Headquarters in the Mushroom Kingdom, but then it got destroyed when Death targeted it." They drove in further silence, just gazing out in front of them in an awkward stillness.

They pulled up at the academy in twenty minutes, to find out that there were no students over the spring/summer vacation. There were only a few cars in the parking space, making the academy look desolate and quiet.

"Do you think she's in this academy right now?" asked Goombella doubtfully.

"We have a six out of……one-hundred and sixty-nine chance," said Dry Bones. "Six cars in this parking lot besides us, and this academy has one-hundred and sixty-nine faculty members. If you reduce it, it is two out of……fifty-six and a third of a person, perhaps an amputee or an anorexic person who looks like one-third the size of a normal body."

"I don't think there could be one third of a person," pointed out Goombella. "But please, Jill has to be here." They slowly entered through the doors.

"Room, uh, 666," read Dry Bones, noticing the unlucky number. "Professor Hillsherry, Water Academy Master. Owner of Degree Effluence at Trihydrate H20 Academy."

"Wow, this academy belongs to her," realized Goombella. "She must be here right now." After finding the elevator, they both entered it to discover how technology filled the elevator was. There was a touch pad directly in the middle of the elevator, and small lock spaces in the walls for students to store their stuff as they ride their way in the elevator. There was a TV in the corner of the ceiling, which Goombella thought to be a tutor video. Besides this were a couple of more interesting gadgets in the six by eight foot area

"Wow," examined Dry Bones. "You have to draw your floor number to continue, just like the Nintendo DS." With excitement he drew the number sixty in his sloppiest yet still-readable way, and the machine replied back.

"Floor 50."

"Not exactly," Dry Bones called out. "I wanted floor 60."

"Very well," replied the machine. It examined their faces with its built-in face scanner, and because someone had installed the two peoples' faces, the machine recognized them immediately.

"Welcome, Goombella Cheney and Drew B. Discet. Jill Hillshery has been looking a lot forward to seeing you two." The machine beeped, signaling that it turned off. They looked at each other.

"Jill already knew about us too!" said Goombella in surprise. "She probably knows our situation, just as we knew hers."

"Then let's go!" exclaimed Dry Bones. "She's definitely here."

To both of their delight and relief, they realized that the sixth room had their lights on, with a whooshing sound being heard from the inside, an experiment Jill was currently working on. On the front and the side of the door was the name of the professor, cheater, young toad, water-obsessed character, scientist, survivor, or any other word to describe the strong-willed character who worked so hard on finding a solution, who would end up dead by a flash of Death in a sooner chapter: Jill Brakenex Hillsherry.

She turned around, startled, until she realized who the two visitors were. She was a toad with dark, brunette hair tied in a bun to keep her hair from danger, with blue eyes which matched along with her crimson lipstick. Although she was in a lab and was supposed to dress more proper, she was wearing a black tank-top along with a pair of rusty jeans. She was pretty, but smiling her brightest when she saw Goombella and Dry Bones.

"What a coincidence!" she smiled. "I was just about to leave off and search for you guys in the next hour."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Hillsherry," replied Goombella. "I was always looking forward to meeting you in person."

"Pleasure to meet you too, Ms. Hillsherry," Dry Bones said. "We read all about your blimp situation, and we read your Infamous Death Curse History essay thing on a website."

"Just call me Jill," she said back.

"Do you know our situation?" asked Goombella. "Our situation with the Insanity Ride and me having the premonition, then my friends and us dying shortly after? I believe you were on the ride too."

"I was, unfortunately," said Jill in a disappointed voice. "And Frank was probably sitting next to me the whole time on the ride, but I had no idea because I was talking to my new friends in the arm next to me."

"Who were they?" asked Dry Bones.

"Oh, they were the Comedians Brothenians, those famous comedian and stunt brothers," said Jill.

"Those brothers," suddenly remembered Goombella. "When I suddenly fainted on the monorail, they helped me get up. They were two hammer bros in those sparkly clothes."

"Those are them," said Jill. "But, the downside is I might have been sitting with one of the brothers instead. You know, the three of them, Frank and the two brothers, they're all hammer bros, and I might have gotten confused."

"Besides that," said Goombella. "Have you discovered any information of a way of cheating Death?"

"Yes," said Jill excitedly. "To cheat Death you need to be erased from his list. This is what I discovered." She made her way to a long, glass chute laid across a table horizontally filled with water which was being pushed by two machines on both ends, making the water wave against two sides.

"First, according to the puzzle, the origin of Death as a figure originated in Germany," she explained. "The German word for Death is Tod, and I needed to find an acronym for Tod. Try to guess."

"Turn of…Destiny?" guessed Goombella.

"Truth or Dare!" said Dry Bones. "Or am I wrong?"

"That's what I thought of first," said Jill. "But I needed to think, and then I got it. Time of Departure. The only one I came up with was the time departure for the blimp. So I took out my blimp ticket from my Death journal and saw the time; 10: 27 A.M."

"What was that for?" asked Goombella.

"I found the coordinates for them, ten degrees North and 27 degrees West," Jill explained further. "And it led to the Western Sahara in Africa, near the city of Hawza. So I traveled all the way there."

"All for that?" exclaimed Dry Bones. "I mean, yeah! Of course I would do the same thing you did."

"No, I actually thought I was going crazy," admitted Jill. "But I had a fear of hot places, and my obsession with water couldn't help me at all, plus the fact that I was still on Death's list. So I flew all the way to Hawza and traveled West in the hot sun for days, and then my gas went down. I fell into a pit of scorpions because Death was still after me, but I managed to dig a long tunnel until I finally reached the surface of the sand. And it turned out that someone stole my jeep while I was gone for two hours." She let out a small chuckle.

"But I finally reached the ancient tribe whom I was supposed to meet, as I felt. The chief master was Head T, and I explained why I came here. He said I was courageous, and it doing so, he gave me a white crystal which he said would give me a hint in my most desired question, which was, of course, 'How do you get out of Death's list?' So I took it, and his comrade drove me in a helicopter to Japan, where he said that the country was also a hint, and I should find another person who knew how to find the crystal. He dropped me off in a place called Mizu Hodai."

"Then what happened next?" asked Goombella, impressed and amazed at Jill's hard work. "I'm really impressed and amazed in your hard work."

"Thanks," Jill replied. "Anyway, I went into a store and saw an old Japanese woman, who spoke English and had rather colorful hair. I explained my entire journey, and she said that this town's name might be helpful in figuring what to do. I got a Japanese dictionary the next day and found out that 'Mizu' meant water and 'Hodai' meant subtitle. The next day the old woman brought me to a Japanese restaurant, and the place had lots of clocks in it. I had some delicious katsudon, and asked her what clock was in Japanese. She said it was Tokei. I was suddenly reminded of Catherine Tamago, the Japanese birdo who died in our blimp situation in a horrible way. The restaurant she worked at was the Tokei Numa, where she unintentionally killed Yoshi. I said goodbye to the old lady the next morning and headed straight to Las Vegas, where I thought my life would be safe. I won in less than a week to actually own the academy, which many people actually liked and favored. But then just recently, the day before yesterday, I remembered to finish my Death solution. I tried to figure what to do, and I came up with this; put the white crystal in a long sideways channel filled with mizu, water, and since hodai meant subtitle, I'll submerge it, and send a 'Tidal' wave towards it, by pushing waves to it by both sides to create the effects of a tidal wave. And I'll wait until something happens to the white crystal before I can continue." She finished talking with a smile of satisfaction on her face.

"Wow," said Dry Bones. "You are a genius."

"Are you sure everything you did was correct?" asked Goombella. "I have a feeling that everything is correct, but just in case something is wrong…"

"No, everything is correct," confirmed Jill. "I had a dream of it by Death. He's getting very angry at me, because he was sending vices to me and all that stuff, but I know I'm correct."

"We'll try to defeat him before someone else dies next," said Goombella. "Death would then become stoppable, and our lives would be new."

"There's only one problem," said Dry Bones. "Who's next to die?" Goombella took the photographs out of her bag and told Dry Bones to explain what they were to Jill, and as they talked about the pictures, Goombella thought of the night of the disaster.

_Like a frisby, the eight-legged machine struck directly into the observation deck below, shattering glass as the people in the deck watched in horror. The arm which had struck into the glass was the seats of Wendy and Ludwig, and blood was only seen at the edge of the arm, along with a horrific dissortment of two bodies. The other seven arms were sticking in the air, as two other people fell below, their screams echoing through the air._

"Jill was one of them," remembered Goombella clearly, and remembered that Jill had been the second one to fall. The first person was definitely a hammer bro., but she tried to remember who it was. Then the look of the hammer bro. suddenly flew into her head. It was Frank's distorted face as she remembered him screaming to his doom.

"Frank," she whispered loudly to the other two. "He's going to be killed next."

* * *

**Once again, the cliff hanger ends with mentioning Frank. This is you last chance to email Frank before something happens to him! Try to find his email in the previous chapter.**

**Thank you for reading people! My goal is to reach 45 reviews for the tenth chapter, so thank you if you choose to review. I will update later.**


	11. Chapter 11: Bumping By Compound

**Sorry for not updating sooner, a storm knocked down a tree onto our apartment and cut off the electricity and internet. Please enjoy! This chapter is cruel.**

* * *

**_Chapter 11: Bumping By Compound_**

The temptation was killing him after he was reminded of a smoking pipe in the picture Dry Bones had showed him. A strong sense of him fell into his past, where he was a hopeless tobacco addict. That was what brought Frank to the deli store on the Tuesday morning.

"That is three bags of chips, four magazines, a toothbrush, tofu hotdog, and a briar pipe kit case," said the clerk lady. "That is sixty coins in total." As Frank got out his money, the lady said something.

"You're going to die."

"Wha…what you say?" said Frank, turning around in surprise.

"My aunt used to always smoke pipe when she young," said the clerk lady, who seemed to be at the age of fifty. "She died at a pretty young age…do you want a little wooden thing to ruin your life? It'll burn through your family." She peered in closer to him, making Frank quiver and run out of the shop with his paid shopping objects.

"Strange old lady," he muttered as he entered the motel. His own private living compartment was behind his front desk, which he unlocked and went into. It was a three room place; a bedroom which was the front room, the bathroom, and a room for guests, which he had stuffed with garbage and trash in the past month, making only two rooms available to survive in. The room had an awful stench of beer and…something else, and there was the smell of dead animal.

"What the fuck?" he yelled lifting up a pillow to reveal a dead squirrel, severely burnt. Frank kicked it against the wall, smearing a horrifying scene of blood and guts along the carpet. He picked up some papers from his desk.

"The bills are due next week," he said to himself. He groaned in misery as he opened his curtains, letting sunlight stream into the room. He despised it, but he knew he couldn't live in darkness for the rest of his living time. He knew that Death struck more in the dark.

Remembering his new smoke kit, he opened the case and saw a briar pipe, polished and new in a plastic container. In the other box were various chemicals used for smoking.

"Let's see," examined Frank, looking at the different chemical containers. "Ashes, tobacco, sulfuric acid, cleaning wax, smoking wax, and other stuff." He picked up the manual from his table and read it out loud.

"Place the cover of the pipe to the position it is able to slide into," he read. "Then place a teaspoon of tobacco in, mix it with ashes." He did the following quickly, then continued.

"Before you put on the mouth piece, you must clean it with the sulfuric acid and cleaning wax. Cover the mouth piece with the two chemicals (three teaspoons each) and submerge in a bowl, with the screen cover, filled with water, then wait exactly twenty minutes. Then pour out the water with the screen cover, and then clean the screen cover thoroughly and carefully. After you take out the pipe mouth piece with the tweezers, you must put 3-5 drops of cleaning wax onto it, then wait for five minutes. Then rinse mouth piece, and put it on the pipe."

Frank opened the drawer next to him and found a large bowl, and went over to his sink to fill it with water.

"Step two," he said. "Was…" He looked over at the instructions.

"Oh yeah, put the sulfuric acid and cleaning wax with the mouthpiece, and put it submerged in the bowl for twenty minutes." He carefully placed two teaspoons of cleaning wax on the metal mouth piece, and added two teaspoons of the dangerous chemical before dropping it into the water. The chemicals started to wander within the bowl, covering the surface and making the mouth piece unseen. Frank chuckled in satisfaction.

"And wait twenty minutes," he said. "That was too easy, wasn't it Frank?" He turned around, peeking a look at the burnt squirrel, and went back outside to take care of his other dealing. He left the room, locking the door behind him.

"Frank?" asked Jill in surprise after Goombella's statement. "Do you actually remember hi being next, or are you guessing?"

"I remember exactly," said Goombella. "I remember Frank's face before you fell out of your chair on the ride."

"There's no hesitation," Jill said in alarm. "We have to go fast and save him. I suppose you guys know where he is?"

"He's the manager of the Motel 6," said Dry Bones. "That's almost twenty minutes away, so let's leave this place now."

"But I can't leave my room because I have to take care of this experiment," said Jill. "But perhaps you two can go and save him."

"We'll do it," promised Dry Bones.

"Please save him," said Jill, almost in a desperate voice. "I want to tell him something important when you bring him back here. It'll make him really blissful." Goombella nodded at the kind toad, but then remembered something.

"You're after Frank," said Goombella, worried. "Will you survive yourself when we're gone? Do you want to keep your picture?"

"No," said Jill, smiling faintly. "I'll be ready to cheat Death once again. Just go on already." Goombella felt a tap on her shoulder.

"Hey, let's go," said Dry Bones. Goombella closed the door and followed Dry Bones to the parking lot, to his car.

Back at the motel, the bowl with the pipe mouth piece and chemicals mixed with water started to steam, which was perfectly ordinary. Because the table was slanted and the condensed steam had also made water drops appear, the bowl inched its way to the right and knocked the glass container of the sulfuric acid over. The bottle slipped down the table at a fast speed, until it crashed into the desk below and shattered, spilling the substance all over the briar pipe which was nestled on a napkin. The acid let out a steam before the tobacco gradually absorbed the sulfuric acid into the pipe, just when Frank entered his room.

"Fifteen minutes is up," he said, peeping over at the dead squirrel before focusing on the bowl. He carried the bowl to the bathroom and poured the water in the sink, then opened the screen cover to take out the mouthpiece, which he then put onto a towel.

"My last step," he said to himself as he squeezed the bottle of cleaning wax over it and delivered three drops onto the object, and realized his broken lampshade on the table besides him. As Frank tried to touch it, it let out a massive spark and knocked Frank to the ground in surprise. The lamp sizzled, before sparking once again and shattering the light bulb onto the carpet.

"Whoa," said Frank. "That reminds me of when I was at Jill's laboratory, where Mush---" He stopped when he remembered the name of his friend who had saved his life numerous times in the past; on the blimp, in the church yard from the weather vane, on the floating tire, and in the burning chest. On the day he died, Frank was supposed to be killed by a flying sign. But he had ducked instead, resulting in the killing of Mush Rumberg.

"Damn you, Death," he muttered out loud, in a voice of frustration.

"Okay, in the clue of his picture," said Goombella, back in the car with Dry Bones. "He was smoking when he swore he wasn't smoking."

"That's right, and there's that fire sign near him," said Dry Bones. "Do you remember that?"

"Shoot," realized Goombella. "I forgot Frank's picture on Jill's desk. That's not good." Dry Bones stepped on the pedal harder, pushing their driving speed faster and more dangerously.

Frank rinsed the mouthpiece of the pipe in a cup, and picked up the pipe from the napkin on the lower table, ignorant of the broken glass covering around it. He placed and twisted the mouthpiece onto the pipe, making sure it was tight and placed at the correct point.

"Now, where's my lighter?" he asked out loud, searching throughout the garbage on the floor.

Dry Bones stopped their car near Frank's motel and went up to the door, trying to turn the knob.

"It's locked," he said, trying to bang on the door. Goombella kicked the door as hard as she could multiple times, but the door remained shut.

"Hello? Frank?" she shouted. "It's us, Goombella and Dry Bones, we're outside!"

Frank lifted a loaf of bread from the ground and found the lighter nestled underneath it. He couldn't hear the two rescuers outside trying to save him from his fate, as he lit his pipe, and then inhaled on it in satisfaction.

"He can't hear us," Dry Bones realized. "We need to get inside somehow." He found a lead pipe on the ground and smashed the closest window to him, breaking it and making his way inside. Goombella followed him immediately, and they found themselves in the main lobby.

"Where is he?" asked Goombella. "Is he here?" They searched around the building, deciding to search through the halls instead.

"Nice, sweet pipe," he sighed, remembering the day he had quit smoking, and felt the sudden emotion that what he was doing was not correct. The acid-soaked tobacco fumes mixed with fire entered the young turtle's mouth, and the victim didn't bother to exhale. After a few seconds he threw the briar pipe onto the floor.

"I can't do it," he sighed in guilt. "I can't---" He let out a wheezing cough, something that he didn't do usually.

Frank felt his tongue stinging in pain. He swirled it around his mouth, trying to ignore the fact that something was wrong with it. But the pain started to spread and raised yet further within his mouth. He seized out a can of coke from his refrigerator and tried taking a small sip, only for a rotten feeling to occur, and he spit the soda back onto the floor.

He sat down on the couch for half a minute, shaking his head in pain as the stinging continued in the roof of his mouth. Taking no hesitation, he made his way to the bathroom.

In unhurried panic, he went up to the mirror and opened up his mouth, only for his eyes to open up in fright. His teeth and gums were bleeding severely, blood dribbling out of his mouth mixed with large amounts of saliva. He opened his cabinet quickly and found a container of cotton pads, which he stuffed into his mouth in alarm.

Not only did the cotton pads soak vast amounts of blood, but Frank felt the burning pain travel its way down his throat. He spat the cotton out onto his bed and saw the briar pipe on the ground, sizzling from sulfuric acid as he happened to see the shattered glass of the chemical container on the desk next to him. He coughed in pained disbelief, coughing up blood onto his hands and shirt as well as he looked at the largest piece of glass among the crushed pieces.

**Caution: Causes very serious irritation to skin; Do not put near face, do not inhale, do not**

Frank threw the glass down in despair as he felt his throat swelling up, tightening up as if there were a cord wrapped around his neck.

"Haa…ahhh, ahhhhh!" he gasped, a strange muffled wheeze which he had never said before. His nasal passage was reached by the fumes, sending an intense wave of feeling to occur to the unfortunate person, who tried to keep his breathe continuing. Nausea swept over him and he vomited all over himself and the floor, his vomit being thirty-five percent blood as he struggled to keep his balance. He fell to the ground, as he let out another muffled blood cough, but then choked back on it as his eyes filled up with tears of pain and depression. He was going to die; the acid fumes had reached his lungs, and little amounts of steam were being released from his nostrils, which were tearing away by the sulfur. His mouth was filled of blood.

"Frank!" Someone had called his name, as he slowly turned his head to look at Goombella, then Dry Bones entering the room after her. Their face expressions were full of horror.

"Oh no," gasped Goombella, trying to get him up effortlessly, but Dry Bones, or we'll call him Drew by his real name, pulled her away, knowing what was happening to Frank at the moment.

"Some element is taking over him," stuttered Drew, holding Goombella tightly as she found tears coming out from her eyes.

The look of Frank was too horrible to describe, and all I will say right now is that his chest was burning gruesomely as well in a chemical way, and that he had a last thought.

"_You know that that pipe will lead you to trouble one day," said Peach._

Frank remembered those words, and Peach had proved herself correct in a prediction. With a last, choked gasp, Frank's life ended.

* * *

**Thank you for reading. **

**What will happen next to the remaining survivors? Will they find out the solution soon? Please review kindly, and I may update soon.**


	12. Chapter 12: Fire Flash

**Read and enjoy the twelfth chapter!**

* * *

_**Chapter 12: Fire Flash**_

"Is he dead?" asked Goombella, wiping her face with a nearby napkin on the desk besides her.

"I…I think so," stuttered Drew, and he noticed the burnt squirrel on the side of the room.

"That was a sign," Drew noticed. "The burnt squirrel was a sign of his Death." They both jumped back in surprise as the lamp let out a spark, onto the spilled beer on the carpet as it lit up in a blaze. Goombella and Drew looked at the peculiar fire, which started to form letters.

"It's another message," Goombella stated in no surprise, only for the fire to spread in a line and spell out a word.

_**TILCOREE HP**_

They stared at it in utter silence.

"Uh, a sign?" asked Drew.

"Don't be stupid, of course it is," sighed Goombella. "Everything we see from now on that's weird and unusual, until we beat the design, will be a sign. I'm realizing that they're mostly used to taunt us."

"Or maybe this one is used to help us out," pointed out Drew. "Let me write this down somewhere so we can look at it later." He took out one of the photographs from Goombella's backpack and wrote down the strange message on the blank opposite side, but then frowned when he turned the picture over.

"My shivering scapula!" he exclaimed. "Come over here and look at this picture."

"I can't," said Goombella. "The fire is spreading all over the room, and I can't put it out!" She kept on waving the blanket over the spreading flames, but with no triumph and success.

Goombella handed it over to Drew willingly and went to the corner of the room, while Drew flapped the blanket over the flames in a more successful fashion. But it wasn't successful enough, and Drew let go of the blanket. The flame-covered blanket drifted to the bed, which was then lit by the drops of sulfuric acids, and soon enough the bed was engulfed in an inferno. Goombella shrieked as a fireball suddenly shot out at Drew, as he flew backwards onto the stained carpet, which was then put on fire. Smoke spread out at different places within the burning room.

"Are you all right?" asked Goombella, kneeling over to Drew's side.

"Let's go," gasped Drew, grabbing her hand before opening the door.

"Wait!" she cried, taking a last glance at the dead squirrel before she exited the door, and another tiny explosion was heard as they both exited the motel.

"We can't leave the motel room on fire!" cried Goombella. "There are people in the other rooms! We have to warn them!" She went back into the motel and spotted a fire alarm lever, which she pulled down. Alarms shook the building as motel guests came out of their rooms from down the hall, alarmed and in confusion.

"Take your belongings and evacuate!" shouted Drew, entering the motel behind Goombella. "There is a huge fire! Tell everyone and somebody call nine one one!" Hurried screams were heard as people rushed out of their rooms in a hurry, and banged on other doors to make sure no one was left behind to die. Numerous people were dialing for emergency on their cell phones.

"Okay, now we can go," announced Drew quietly to Goombella.

"Are you sure?"

"If you don't want to save Jill," he said quickly. "The firefighters will take care of everyone." They both jumped into their car and drove off, before looking back at Motel 6 and the fiery room on the side of the wall. They were both relieved when they started to hear sirens in the distance, signaling that help was on the way.

"Motel 6," Drew sighed. "Another unlucky sign."

Back at the school college, where the next victim was currently at, Jill looked over at her unusual water chute; especially keep her eye on the white crystal in the middle of the sideways passageway as the waves slightly pushed it back and forth.

To her surprise, the wave machines at both ends suddenly stopped moving.

Before she could take a step towards it, the white crystal in the water altered into a different, indigo color. Jill's eyes gleamed with joy as she knew that she was close to finding the solution to cheat Death.

"What could this be?' she pondered out loud to herself. She raised a lid in the glass chute and tried to take out the water-soaked crystal, but she pulled back quickly as she touched it, blowing on her fingers at the excruciating heat. The rock seemed to be burning at a high temperature, as she took out her special translucent heat-absorbing gloves and, carefully, placed the hot crystal onto a think layer of bumpy foam. Her phone rang.

"Rotten timing," she said with a slight frown, and picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hello Jill? It's Goombella and Dry Bones."

"Oh, hi!" said Jill, her mood becoming delighted once again. "Where's Frank? Can I talk to him?"

There was a pause. Goombella looked at Drew worriedly for an answer.

"Dry Bones, what should I say?" asked Goombella, covering the speaker of her phone. "She thinks that Frank is still alive.

"Tell her to just come down," replied Drew nervously. "We're still stuck here and helpless."

"Uh, Jill, if you don't mind coming down here," requested Goombella. "Our car doors are stuck and locked, and we seem to have trouble getting out of the car."

"Try shattering the windows," Jill suggested, keeping her eyes on the white crystal on the other table. Goombella looked at Drew, who immediately shook his head.

"We can't," said Goombella. "And we're…Jill, hurry up quickly!" Both people hung up on their phones.

"What's wrong Goombella?" asked Drew. Goombella quietly pointed to the three seats on the back, and to the creature sitting in the back of the car. A red thin snake with a yellow strip on the side.

"That's a Garter Snake," explained Drew, chuckling. "They're not poisonous."

"Are you sure?" asked Goombella. "Then it has a reason that Death made it appear."

"Oh, I know," realized Drew. "You're making her come down to help us! She's going to get killed!" Goombella took out Jill's picture quickly, as Drew picked up the Garter Snake by the middle of the body, looking at it and letting it free through a small slit in the window.

"Okay," said Goombella. "I bumped into her unknowingly in the line of the ride, and took a picture accidentally."

The picture had a heavy flash, and the top part of Jill's head was nearly pushed against the lens of the camera. It was a dark background, with flashes visible on the sides.

"Well, she's coming down here to help us," said Drew. "But she's going to probably get struck by Death before she reaches us."

"Then that elevator," gasped Goombella. "Quick, we have to get out of this car."

Jill exited her classroom and closed the door, before walking over to the elevator and pressing the button. Within a few seconds the elevator doors opened, and she stepped in.

"Please request the floor number," announced the machine. Jill wrote down the number

0 on the touch screen. The elevator doors closed and the elevator descended. Only after going two floors down the elevator stopped moving, and shook slightly. Jill hid her alarm as the elevator shook once again. In a sudden shoosh and and startling sound, the elevator dropped nearly six floors down in a flash, as the TV on the corner of the top of the wall broke off, shattering onto the ground. Jill shrieked, grabbing onto the railing besides her and pushing her body to the floor, trying to gather back up her mind in panic. She opened the emergency door on the side of the elevator and tried pressing the back-up mode button, only for no signal to appear. The lights above her in the ceiling of the elevator burst, leaving her in darkness and stillness in a closed area.

"You're not going to die," whispered Jill in panic. "You're not going to die." She took out a mini flashlight from her pocket and shone it against the emergency buttons, found the light switch, and flicked it on. She let out a sigh of release when the backup lights spun on in the corners.

"It won't work," said Drew, putting down the golf club after trying numerous times to crack the window with it. "We need to find another way to escape this car."

Goombella looked around quickly for a solution, but was startled as she fell backwards into the back of the car. She felt something budge.

"Wait," said Goombella, pushing once again at the back wall of the car, and felt the wall move slightly. "I think this can be pushed down to bring us to the back of the car."

"You mean into the trunk of the car?" asked Drew.

"Help me push against this area," Goombella told him. As Goombella used all her might with her head, Drew used his boney arms to try and push their way out, through a small area.

"We apologize for the malfunction," announced the machine in the elevator. "We will now bring you back to the floor you had started. Please contact a school administrator as soon as possible."

The elevator started making its way back to Jill's original level, where she had first left off. The doors finally opened back to Floor 60, as Jill took out a stylus from her pocket and used the touch-screen to contact the front office, while unaware that the elevator was still not safe, and was still malfunctioned in a certain area.

"Contact substitute Ms. Annasia Encastraw," said Jill, typing the information on the touch-screen as the doors of the elevators opened up.

With a loud, blinding flash of white, the touch-screen glass burst.

* * *

**I cut this chapter off early to save more for the next chapter. If you have read this far in my story of Death Riding, congrats! I hope you like it. I will update soon! Reviews are appreciated and optional (ignore below please).**

"**When Aunt Em states that they may have to give Toto away in Kansas, Miss Gulch says 'Now you're seeing reason!' When Dorothy agrees to give the ruby slippers to the witch, the witch says the same line."**

**(Please don't mind the statement above. It's embarrassing, and it's also the slayer's problem.) **


	13. Chapter 13: Flash Fire

**The thirteenth chapter is here, despite the bad number. Enjoy!**

* * *

**_Chapter 13: Flash Fire_**

Stunned and in shock at the flash and shooting glass, Jill flew backwards and landed on the ground, her body halfway in the elevator compartment. The touch-screen machine started to fizzle, destroyed and broken, as Jill heard a sound of snapping coming from above her.

The elevator collapsed suddenly, plummeting to the bottom floor in a quick flash of movement. Jill rolled backwards quickly in the nick of time to avoid her death, and to still remain as one piece instead of two bloody halves, as Thomas Fan did. A loud crash was heard from below, and before she could examine any further, the elevator doors closed. To her surprise, no alarms went off as it should have if there were a malfunction, but she ignored the fact, dusting her clothes and realizing that her shoes were left behind when she rolled backwards, and were inside the elevator at the bottom of the shaft.

"That was close," she panted, making her way to her room, then running into the room to answer the ringing phone. It was no other than Goombella, still trapped in the car.

"Hello?"

"Jill! Where are you?" said Goombella in an alarmed voice.

"I once again cheated Death."

But something struck in her mind in relation to the pattern. It was the words of the ancient tribe leader, Head T.

"_Remember the new rule of intervening; one can't skip without another cheater's help."_

Jill stopped in her tracks, hesitating on her next step. She turned on her overhead projector on the other side of the room, planning to place a map of an ancient desert onto the light before going back to the phone again.

"Wait, sorry," corrected Jill, picking up the phone. "I didn't cheat yet."

"What do you mean?" Goombella asked.

"I can't cheat without you guys with me. Someone on the list has to intervene for me, and I can't do it by myself, which I just did." Jill looked around the room to see if everything was approvable of safety. She found no objects fitting into the category.

"Well," said Goombella. "We'll try to reach you, but we need to find a way out of this car first." Dry Bones suddenly grabbed the phone from Goombella.

"Jill! What is Tilcoree HP?" he said.

"Tilcoree HP?" repeated Jill. "Yes, I know what that means. It's an an---" Before she could say any more, the phone finished off with a zap and a spark. Jill dropped the phone onto the ground and looked at the white crystal, which started to glow on one of the sparkling faces. She went over to the desk and noticed little white scribbles glowing conspicuously on the side, hiding a secret that existed since the day of a certain burning death.

She touched the crystal for a split second, and once she was sure it was cool enough to hold, she picked it up into her hands and looked at the message. She gasped, her eyes gleaming with confusion and triumph. There was a sentence that gleamed right on the surface of the rock, and the more Jill looked at it, the brighter it appeared to glow.

"I think I know," said Jill finally in a soft voice, getting up from her chair and carrying the crystal to the other side of the room, not watching where she was about to step.

I will start sharing the first page of Jill's notebook, dated back to the day she turned fifteen, exactly three years and 39 days ago:

**Water: A colorless, odorless, and most known liquid which covers 70.8 of the surface of Earth. It is essential for most plants and living organisms. **

**Spotted elsewhere: On Europa and Enceladus (Moons).**

**-Boiling point 100°C (212°F) **

**- Freezing point 0°C (32°F)**

**Natural bodies of waters: **

**- Ocean**

**- River**

**- Bay**

**- Lake**

**- Gulf**

**- Creel**

**- Harbor**

**- Pond**

**- Wash**

**-Reservoir **

**- Lagoon**

**Around my area:**

**- _S_tream**

**- _I_nlet**

**- _C_hannel**

**- _S_ound**

(End of page)

As she eagerly walked over to the other side of the room to discover the true meaning of the secret gem message, she stepped on her notebook on the ground and tripped, her hands flying into the air as her as her body fell forwards. Instead of hitting the hard, stone flooring, her face was smashed into the glass of the overhead projector in front of her. Numerous glass shards pierced into her face, and along with the burning sensation of the strong, intense light, her face was miraculously lit on fire.

She screamed as she raised her head from inside the machine, not able to see as she put out the fire with a towel besides her. Her face was dripping with blood, cuts visible everywhere from her forehead to her chin.

Looking around frantically while crying at the same time, she lifted a mini aquarium from a nearby desk and poured it upon herself, as the pain started to grow by the second. She was gasping, as she felt debris of glass still stuck into her face, and pulled them out slowly but painfully, dripping blood all over the floor in a bloody and wet mess.

A cord got tangled in her slippers and was pulled out, but Jill saw it in the corner of her eye. Although she was still in an excruciating mode of pain in her slashed face, she jumped out of the way, kicking the cord from her legs as it electrocuted the huge amount of water on the floor. She fell to the ground, and to her dismay, she found that her legs were too weak to get herself up. Her ankles had been paralyzed by the water.

She tried to catch her breathe, as she suddenly spotted the white crystal, just merely few feet away from her. The overhead projector fell over, setting fire to the various spilled chemicals on the ground.

"_They need it," _she thought to herself quickly. As she started to find tears of hopelessness in her eyes, the flames traveled along the trail of dangerous water. Jill reached over and grasped the crystal in her frail hands, got up to her knees, and flung it out the window, having all her doubts on the chance of a miracle. "Mush," remembered Jill.

Although Jill studied compounds, liquids, and complicated science material, she never knew anything that lay after the time of being lifeless. But she felt inside her that she would meet the others; Peach, Mush, and the additional victims along with her. Their deaths had arrived too soon and too gruesomely.

The flames traveled along the water and ended at her desk only a few feet away from her, lighting the table on fire and burning the objects in the way. Without warning, the various chemicals in her test tubes blew up simultaneously, in a strong, intense, flash, as Jill was thrown backwards into the counter behind her. Her neck was snapped against the edge, as she fell to the ground. The fire spread to a nearby row of Bunsen burners.

"We made it!" shouted Goombella, as the back of the back seat opened up to the trunk of the car. She pushed it open, Drew following right behind her as they stared at the blinding light in the open air. They gazed around the parking lot to gather their minds together.

"Where is Jill?" asked Drew. Before any of them could say another word, an explosion was heard from far above them, and as they looked up at the sky, a blast of fire shot out of the window of Room 666, as if a dragon had blasted its fiery breathe out into the air. The two confused people ducked as glass and metal fell against them from the floor high above.

"The crystal!" cried Goombella. "Catch it!" Drew looked up at the falling remains and saw the crystal in the air, falling directly at him.

In a one in a 345,000 chance of catching an item unexpectedly along with other trash when a person had meant it to be caught, Drew caught it from the sky. He looked at Goombella, who looked at him back, and they both knew that Death succeeded once again.

In the next hour, Las Vegas was filling with chaos. The empty parking lot was no longer empty, but filled with police cars, news reporters, and ambulances, along with investigators and numerous fire trucks. Many had come with the news that the victim was a cheater of the past blimp catastrophe, but others had come for other reasons. Motel 6 was treated nearly the same.

"Two people in the 10: 27 Blimp Curse found dead yesterday in Las Vegas," read Drew from a morning newspaper the next day. "Motel 6 is closed down after huge fire, Degree Effluence at Trihydrate H20 Academy will be shut down for the next month."

"Not only that," said Goombella, biting down on an almond croissant. "Last night, 30,000 people have left the city. They're paranoid with all the deaths happening in the past week."

"Today is Thursday. It's just tomorrow for the flight back," reminded Drew. Goombella nodded.

"Ludwig is suing us."

"Us?" hissed Drew. "Why us?"

"Well, isn't it obvious?" said Goombella. "He's telling his lawyer that I killed Wendy by pushing her head into that metal hook. And that you tried to kill them instead by pouring hot wax all over the both of them."

"Well, he's an asshole, so we don't worry about him, right?" said Drew. Goombella nodded again.

"I know what'll make you happy," said Dry Bones. "Let's ride the Manhattan Express Roller Coaster at the New York New York Hotel."

"But…why? Isn't that dangerous right now?" Goombella said in a hesitant tone. "And I thought you said we would examine the white crystal in the morning."

"We aren't next, are we?" pointed out Drew. "Death won't strike as long as we don't look at the next photograph."

"How do you know that?" said Goombella. But Drew got up from his seat and took a few steps to the exit of the store, then turned around.

"Race you across the street to the ride!" he said, as Goombella chased after him with a noticeable smile.

You can still have fun, discovered Goombella, even when Death is after you.

* * *

**Jill is dead (gasp!), and so will others later on, yet she had the most suffering death scene. What will the next chapter have in store?**** Oh, and I have to congratulate LittleDude300 for making the list, except that you spelled Lahla wrong! Just kidding, it was excellent; I liked it as much as the other great reviews. As to others, thank you for reading so far, I will try to update possibly in the next week. **


	14. Chapter 14: Lahla Bye

**I start school tomorrow, but I hope you enjoy this chapter a lot!**

**_Chapter 14: Lahla Bye_**

The party was just starting as Lahla entered into the Rio Hotel, getting ready for her unknown, volunteer work. Her main job was too work security and switch the lights for the Masquerade Show in the Sky, but when she was one of the first staff volunteers to arrive on time, the director made her one of the three workers to control the hovering balloons, using a lever and various buttons while enjoying he view from a glass, upper floor. Excited and anxious, she waited for the party to start as she sat down on a table and ate from a bowl of potato chips.

Drew couldn't help but realize the disappointed expression on Goombella's face at 6:00 in the afternoon. They were looking down at the ground from their outside balcony from their apartment, staring down at the police and firefighters.

Two things were going on: There was a highly believed rumor that a foreign Snifit had hid a bomb in the main lobby of the hotel, and that nobody was allowed to enter or exit the hotel. This caused a big uproar in the guests, some of which were missing appointments and plane flights that were scheduled in the past few hours, but in Goombella and Drew's case, could not exit and be able to help Lahla, whom they knew was going to the Rio Hotel.

The other situation was a bit worse for the two of them. A detective was to make sure they were to not leave their room and/or hotel, knowing that at least Goombella had been near or present at every death so far, thus having a premonition of the initial disaster made the police department exceedingly suspicious.

"Is something wrong Goombella?" he asked.

She just stayed there, looking down t the ground, before answering. "What happened to Jill?" she said, still not lifting her head. "She worked so hard to find the solution to Death's design, but she failed. It's as if Death killed her at the last second. We were so close to working together."

"She didn't fail," reminded Drew, scooting over to stand besides Goombella. "Remember, she did all that work to find that crystal. And it's lucky it had fallen out the window during the big explosion. Can you imagine what would have happened if I didn't catch the crystal?"

"But is the crystal worth anything?" realized Goombella, lifting up her head. "Maybe the whole thing was a trick."

Drew pulled out the white crystal from his jacket pocket. "Let's take a look," he decided. He placed it on the lawn table and looked at it, as Goombella did the same. But they found nothing special or peculiar with it.

"I'll be back in a second," he said, rushing back into the room and into the bathroom, cupped his hands to collect water, ran back into the balcony, and splashed water all over the rock, as it made an eerie glow.

"I knew water was the solution." He and Goombella both found little scratch marks on one of the faces, and soon discovered that they weren't white scratches, but words of a hidden message.

_Yoshi was the closest to succeed_

"Yoshi?" repeated Drew, "He was the closest to succeed? Succeed in what?"

"It means that Yoshi was closest to cheating Death," said Goombella, still trying to recall who Yoshi was exactly. "But we can't solve this right now. Lahla is still in lethal danger, and I can't let her go away."

"But we've been in this room for over seven hours," Drew said with a sigh. Goombella looked over the balcony and stared at the policemen over eighty feet below, who seemed to be bringing out a person in handcuffs. She closed her eyes, feeling a scent of wind flying over her.

"I feel like jumping off," she whispered, still closing her eyes with a calm expression on her face/

"Say what?" said Drew in a startled voice. Without believing his eyes, he saw Goombella's body lean forwards, and as he got up from his chair to run over to her, she fell forwards and off the balcony. Drew grabbed her by her shirt at the very last second.

"Goombella, get up!" cried Drew in alarm, using all his might to lift her back onto safety. She opened her eyes and looked around, just as Drew pulled her back onto the balcony, falling backwards onto the ground. Goombella opened her eyes, looked around, and shot back to her feet.

"What happened?" She saw Drew, exhausted on the ground.

"You just tried to jump of the balcony," retort Drew. "What were you thinking?" But by the look of her confused face, Drew knew that she had no idea.

"I keep having these weird feelings of falling of a building."

"I know that," said Drew. "The morning of Tom's death, you said the same thing in the swimming pool. But this time, you actually were on the edge of falling to your death. Literally."

"Lahla is in lethal danger; I can't let her go away. Can we sneak somehow out of this room?" said Goombella.

"Well, we could sneak over to the other balcony right next to us." Drew pointed over to the balcony of the room besides them, and they both knew that climbing there and out of the hotel was the quickest way to reach their only friend, whom was still breathing.

Within the time of Goombella's and Drew's escape, the room of the Rio Hotel was already partying and fully active, and Lahla sat back further on the eating table. Knowing that she would soon have to be controlling the machines in a few minutes, she got up with her hands, but crashed her hand into a fallen lava lamp right besides her. The lava lamp was destroyed, with wax and glass spilled all over a section of the table. But Lahla instead rushed into the back room with a throbbing hand towards the faculty sink.

Within seconds after, an announcement was heard on the speakers.

"All volunteers please report immediately to the area you were directed and assigned to arrive for your assignment. Thank you once again. To our guests and celebrators, our masquerade ball has begun!" A loud ripple of cheer fell across the audiences as performers on the stage came down the numerous stair cases, and as the hovering machines started to come out, displaying people and dancers upon them. Several jugglers and trick entertainers were brought into the middle of the audience, as the people in the flying machines were throwing beads into the eager crowds.

"Hurry up!" yelled Drew at the taxi driver, looking uncomfortably at the police cars chasing right behind them. As Drew kept on handing over money to the worried and frightened taxi man, Goombella had been studying Lahla's photograph.

She was lying on the floor in the arcade, posing awkwardly yet in a fashionable way. In her right hand was a miniature flag she had won at a crane game, and was holding it up in the air. Peeka was right behind her holding a smoothie, and behind them on the wall was a ski ball game. Right next to the ski ball arcade machine was an advertisement for the Insanity ride, which Goombella knew was used to predict Peeka's fate.

Something weird had struck her mind. How did Death know that some of his victims would cheat death by putting other clues in her friends' photos? How did she know that Goombario and Lahla would be the only true victims, and by proving this, he put the Insanity ride clues in their pictures only? She knew the answer: Death puts possibilities in any way.

But she saw something else in Lahla's photo, a clue which she knew would involve in her death, and this clue made Goombella even more alarmed and in a hurry to reach the Rio Hotel as it approached seven at night. On her face was a face painting she had received at one of their friend's birthday party that fateful day, depicting rose thorns on a prickly vine, the tips of the spikes glistening from the light above her.

"Ouch ouch ouch!" whispered Lahla in pain as she held her hand under the rushing water of this sink. She looked at her hand and noticed that it was covered in red blisters, and as she tried to shake it, the pain grew harshly in an unusual way. She simply just stood there, and looked at herself in the mirror.

She was reminded of Peeka, her sister who had passed away at the Insanity ride. "Was Goombella right," she said to herself, yet partially out loud, "That everyone has a design by Death? That Peeka's and mine's design was to die on the ride, and so was Goombella's and Drew's, and Poochy's, and Koopie's, and everyone else's design was for all of us to die that night? And being alive after we're supposed to die…" A little song had entered into her head, a tune which Peeka used to sing to her when she was just a small kid.

_We r_e_present the Lullaby League, The Lullaby League, The Lullaby League  
And in the name of the Lullaby League,  
We wish to welcome you to Munchkinland._

_Lahla, bye, leave, just Lahla, bye, leave…_

She suddenly remembered her new assigned job of controlling the hanging mechanisms, just as a shadow appeared in the mirror directly in front of her, a horrifying skull visible in the person's black, disturbing hood. The person grinned, its face melting as chemicals devoured the boney expression. All of this had occurred in a single second.

As she stepped backwards in shock, she tripped on a broom below her and fell onto the floor, but not before banging into the shelf right in front of her. High above in the shelf was a tool box of doctor supplies which was near the edge of falling, and as Lahla saw it at the very last second, she picked up the broom by her right side with her injured hand, and held the bristles up to the container, just as the box was about to plummet. The plastic container was being supported only by the frail broom, as Lahla held it up in weakly.

"You're driving of the road!" cried Drew to the taxi man. "What are you doing?" The confused taxi driver was terrified, realizing that the breaks on his car had suddenly become disabled. Goombella gasped as they were heading straight into the hotel entry doors. There were no people in the way on danger, but all were backing away from the berserk taxi as it made its final turn

"Noooo!" shouted Goombella and Drew simultaneously, just as the taxi driver took a turn into the glass entrance doors of the hotel. Drew grabbed Goombella's shirt, and at the nick of time, he opened the door and pulled the two of them out, just like they had did in another taxi situation. As they fell and scratched themselves against the hard ground, the taxi shattered into the glass doors and was literally crushed like an accordion, and an eerie alarm broke out from within the trunk. The place was dead silence, when all of a sudden a police car came into view. People at the scene were shocked and bewildered, except for the taxi man, whom was decapitated by a large piece of glass.

"Our luggage and cell phones are in the trunk," remembered Goombella. But Drew looked up to see their detective, the one who was supposed to guard them from exiting their hotel room who had walked over to them on the floor. Another police car came into view, and then another, as policemen covered up the deadly scene.

"Detective Conan; you're under arrest," he said gruffly to Drew, and as they both got up to their feet, he immediately put handcuffs on the hands of Drew in a harsh way. Drew winced as the detective pushed the handcuffs too tight, and as everyone around them watched Drew be taken to a back part of the hotel, Goombella jut stood there, dumbfounded as Drew gave her a look, meaning that she had to do the rest by herself, just as the policeman kicked him to look foward. Why hadn't the detective brought her along with Drew? She then realized that nobody was looking at her, but only at the fatal car crash merely a few feet behind her. They seemed to be looking right through her as if she didn't exist.

Lahla let out a small whimper as she held the broom up. Her hand was aching, and as she tried to move away just the tiniest bit, a pocketknife with the prickly blade sticking out suddenly fell from the plastic, large container, and sliced into the ground right besides Lahla's ear. She let out a muffled shriek, and knew that switching hands with the brooms would only make the entire box collapse onto her.

As her hand started to weaken, a metal pipe fell from the box fell and hit the ground with a loud _CLANG,_ then a syringe which pierced into Lahla's right, raised arm. She let out a scream of pain and started to whimper softly as her injured hand was getting even more fatigue, but she still wouldn't give up as she held the broom upraised firmly, as blood started to drip down her failing, collapsing arm.

Goombella entered the room of the Masquerade party, but then realized one, troubling problem as she looked around frantically at the cheerful chaos that was all around her: Where was her friend?

**Which fates will come in the next chapter? I will update when I get the next chance. Please review! My goal is to reach at least 68.**


	15. Chapter 15: Mouth Cutting

**Okay, I finally made this chapter despite all the homework and school stuff. Enjoy!**

**_Chapter 15: Mouth Cutting_**

Holding up the broom above her just like in her photograph, Lahla knew that the container of hazardous items was going to collapse on her at any second. Blood trickled over her face and clothes as her arm bled from the syringe impalement, and she knew how to save herself, yet in the act she needed to be precautious. Outside, she could still hear the Masquerade Party going on, with the shouts of people cheering on for a sword juggler.

"If only Goombella was here," she said to herself. Something then terrible had struck into her mind. The last time she had seen her last were a few days ago, when they're deadly situation was still going on. Who had died since that time? She never left her hotel room to meet up with them. Maybe her best friend was as dead as her sister, along with Dry Bones, and possibly the others. She looked up at the box above her, and quickly collected up her mind that she herself was next to be targeted.

She picked up the pocketknife right besides her face with her left hand and held it into the air, preparing to throw the object. On the wall behind her was a large glass-stained window pane, with its hinges barely sticking into the wall and hanging at a tilted angle. She discovered if those hinges were somehow broken, the window pane would slide down the slanted table below it and land right on her. She would use it to cover herself from danger.

Praying for good luck, she tossed it at the tearing hinges of the window pane. But because Lahla was a terrible thrower, she missed completely and hit the table instead, sticking the pocketknife into the wooden table. But she had accidentally moved her weakened right hand in the process, and a heavy screwdriver struck her chest heavily. Trying to bide with the pain and be more careful, she realized that not only could the pocketknife help her, but the other deadly objects as well.

Picking up the screwdriver, she looked behind her once more and threw it, making sure that her hand was staying still at all times. Her shot had improved, but had only hit the glass pane. She picked up the metal pipe by her side, and carefully threw it as well, yet this shot was just the same as before as the metal pipe banged on the glass with a _CLANG!_ Her only chance left was the long syringe.

She pulled it out slowly out of her right hand, whimpering at the pain and at the same, time, held the broom in her right hand upright to hold the box up. At last, she held the syringe up and looked behind her. This was her final chance to break the window pane and bring it to her, and as she aimed the syringe at the busted hinges, she threw it.

"I'm looking for Lahla Oostelbos who must be working here as a volunteer," said Goombella. The manager lifted his stack of papers, looking through all the volunteers' names when he suddenly remembered.

"Oh, I remember that I assigned her for her new job. She's controlling the hovering machines along with two others. Lemme give them a call." He picked up the phone and dialed the "Room in the Ceiling".

Goombella, still worried about her two friends at that time presently, looked more closely at Lahla's picture. She looked at Peeka, at the flag that Lahla was holding up. An American Flag. Peeka was holding a strawberry smoothie, yet Goombella didn't know what death would lead up to that. She looked at the shirt Lahla was wearing and realized that printed right on her pink shirt which was clearly visible was the words 'Backstage Door'.

"Yes, yes," finished the manager, hanging up and turning around. "Lahla is not…" Goombella had already left the room in search of her friend.

The syringe bounced off the hinges, but because the syringe was a weak and fragile item, it broke in half and had no effect in bringing the pane down. Lahla looked back at the box above her in a stare of dizziness and pain. Her right hand would soon be out of strength, but if that was so, then the items would fall and kill her. But then she realized the container itself would also be heavy enough to smash her, ending her innocent life.

Then an idea struck her. She could make more objects fall, which she could use to bring the pane to her. As she raised her left hand to hold the broom as well, she found that she was too afraid. The next object may be the one that Death intended to kill her with, instead of the previous items that had either missed or distracted her. She looked up and noticed the bracelet dangling from her right wrist.

Her hope was risen as she carefully untied the bracelet with numerous luck charms on it, but her goal wasn't to just keep it with her but to use it as an item to break the window hinges. She coiled the bracelet in her left hand carefully, and then realized that this was her last and only chance to succeed in this difficult task. She threw the metal bracelet at the hinges, and with her best aim and luck, the hinges were hit by the bracelet, just as the glass-stained window pane fell down, then down the slanted wooden table, and right into Lahla.

But the pane had slid into her right arm holding up the broom and had knocked it down. She gasped as the broom fell away, and as the huge, entire container started to plummet out with deadly items, she picked up the glass-stained window pane and held it above her, screaming at the same time while wrenches, kitchen knives, and razors fell askew. Lahla was safe as she looked above her at the falling blur of objects, crashing against the glass which was the perfect size to cover her entire body from danger. Not only did the plastic container fall, but the other containers below it fell as well, making a racket of sound that was loud enough to beat the party occurring outside.

But she didn't expect the entire shelf full of glass and other objects to tilt over, and as it did, it crashed against the glass protecting her, and Lahla shrieked out loud as she thought the window pane would shatter at such a force.

The stained glass pane had protected her when the shelf plummeted over, and was still holding strong until the end. Lahla opened her eyes slowly, and as she realized that the shelf had fallen over and that she could lift away the glass without getting hurt, she did so. All around her was a dangerous mess, with shattered glass and deadly items scattered all over the floor. The shelf had shattered to pieces as it hit the ground, so around her was just a horrible disorder of what would have killed her.

But Death was not satisfied, and she had not yet intervened in the true way. Lahla hugged her throbbing and aching arm as she stumbled towards the sink, taking care of the syringe impalement and blood first, then switching over to washing her hand, which was sore from holding the broom for up so long.

"My job," gasped Lahla. "It's been nearly ten minutes already." In a quick hurry in attempting to leave the dangerous mess, she opened the cabinet over the sink to pull out a case of band-aids, yet still scared and precautious on what evil forces were still occurring within the room.

A bar of soap fell from the cabinet, and hit the edge of a tooth brush hanging of the edge. A razor, on the other thin edge of the toothbrush, was suddenly flipped into the air like a catapult, and before Lahla could see, the dangerous item flew accurately into her open mouth. She sucked in a gasped breath, causing the razor to be sucked in deeper into her mouth and cutting right into her uvula and tonsils. The cabinet door flung open without warning, hitting her brutally in the head and smacking her face up onto the floor once again, but in good chances, did not get pierced by any glass. She was knocked unconscious.

A minute had passed by. The razor was slowly making its way further back into her mouth. If she swallowed, or if the razor were to sink further through the flow of her saliva, then it would have cut through her neck and out causing a fatal wound. But it was lucky that two people had suddenly entered the wrong room at the right time.

"Whoa! What happened here?" exclaimed one of the Comedian Brothenians. "Ernest, who in the world would do this?" They're eyes wandered confusingly over the gigantic mess of the fallen shelf, as he tried stepping over to the other side of the room.

"Dernest, we're gonna be late for our show," Ernest insisted quickly. "Someone will clean this up."

"But look over there!" he said, pointing over to a figure near the sink. "I think that boo is knocked out unconscious!"

"Maybe she's dead," gasped Ernest, and the two hammer bros. made their way carefully in their sparkling clothes across the clutter to reach Lahla. Dernest reached for her hand and tried feeling for a pulse.

"Yep, she's just knocked out cold," he confirmed. "She's bleeding from her arm, and…oh my god! Her mouth!" He opened up her mouth, which was full of blood, and they both saw a sharp razor far in the back, almost cutting into the back of her throat. "Hmm, haven't we seen her before, or am I just imagining?" he said, looking at her face.

"Well, I'm not pulling it out," said Ernest in a frightened tone. "You do it."

"For heaven's sake, why don't you do it Ernest?" replied Dernest in a voice as scared as his sibling.

"You should do it!"

"You do it!"

"You do it!"

"You do it!"

"She's going to die, so just do it!" exclaimed Dernest. "You're the one who found her in the first place!"

As Dernest opened up her mouth as wide as he could with his hands, Ernest raised his shivering hand and slowly moved it into her mouth, inch by inch. He finally had the urge to reach the metal object, which was far back and nearly entering her esophagus.

"I got it!" said Ernest. "Oh man, this thing is sharp. How do I pull this out of her mouth, I might just cut her uvula."

"Her uvula is already cut off," realized Dernest in a disgusted voice. "Do it slowly and carefully."

"Okay, okay, I'll try my best." Ernest stuck in his other hand into her mouth, and moved the razor slowly up its way through the clogging blood. He tried looking away at the bloody sight of her mouth.

"Okay, you're doing well," said Dernest. "Come on, you're so close."

"I got it!" shouted his brother triumphantly, raising his bloody fingers and razor from her mouth, as his brother released Lahla's mouth. "I feel like a surgeon! Is there a sink where I could wash my hands?"

"You'll never live to be a surgeon," his brother replied, and they both got up to the sink and washed their hands as quickly and cleanly as they could. Lahla at this time stirred on the ground, then slowly gained back her conscience as she got up to her knees and spat the amount of blood besides her on the floor, and shrieked as she saw the amounts of small pieces of flesh that had spat out as well.

"Hey!" said Ernest, turning around. "You're back!"

"Where…who are you?" asked Lahla, still slightly dazed at what had happened.

"We found you on the floor with a razor in your mouth," explained Ernest quickly. "Then we saved you by pulling it out."

Lahla looked at them, and looked at them again. They seemed strangely familiar as if she had met them before somewhere. "Thank…you," she said.

"Hey, no problem," said Ernest.

"Umm, not to break up a sudden life save, but we're supposed to be on stage right now," said Dernest, tapping his brother's shoulder. "Remember?"

"I almost forgot," he said in disappointment, dusting off the dirt off his clothes. "See you later, umm…Lahla I think it is?"

"How did you know that?" Lahla replied back in amazement. But he just winked at her as they two of them left the room in a hurry. Lahla heard one of the brothers say "She almost died" as their footsteps slowly faded away down the hall.

But she then remembered where she had met them before. She had met them last week; they were entertaining her with a magic trick. As her thoughts started to recollect, she remembered herself walking away from the ride which nearly killed her. She looked back at her sister left sitting on the ride, and then entered back into the lobby, then saw the two brothers striking up a conversation with her. They were sitting next to her on the Insanity Ride.

She heard footsteps coming closer, walking at a fast and familiar pace. Lahla got up to her feet quickly. The person had suddenly entered the room.

"Lahla! You're safe!" the person exclaimed.

"Goombella!" she replied back, as they hugged each other in relief and as their worries suddenly faded away. They were still together, and none of them had yet been taken away by Death. Goombella looked around at the unusual mess.

"What happened?" she asked Lahla. "Your mouth and arm is bleeding, and you have cuts all over. And there are knives and hazardous all over the floor, tell me what happened."

"I was holding up a shelf with a broom, which almost toppled over me," said Lahla, still trembling at what had recently happened. "I saved myself."

"But Lahla, you can't save yourself," remembered Goombella. "You're still---"

"Wait, but then a razor was in my mouth somehow and I went unconscious," she told her. "Then these two hammer bros. brothers in these fancy clothes saved me, and I remembered: they were on the ride with us that Friday. And I think they're next to die!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Another chapter cut short to save for later stuff. I hope you liked it! Reviews of any sort are welcome, I'll probably update in a week or later.**


	16. Chapter 16: Seven Turns Nine Turns Zero

**Phew! I'm finally able to finish this chapter, enjoy!**

**_Chapter 16: Seven Turns Nine Turns Zero_**

The melted wax from the lava lamp Lahla had broken and burnt her hand on had gradually melted, as it oozed its way slowly to a nearby stereo on the same table, and as the time went by with Lahla's successful intervene, the stereo was sizzling and letting out sparks of malfunctioning.

"They're next, I knew it. Someone whom I was talking to earlier had told me that the two of them were on the ride." Goombella pulled out a photograph she took of Goombario at the line of the ride. She saw the two of them in the side behind him, talking to a ride attendant. The head of one of the brothers was blocked by Goombario's hat, but the most conspicuous clue in the photograph was what was above them. Placed above them, placed on an upper edge for the making of a Circular Roller Coaster was a scaffold, with a poster of a woman model displayed upon it. Goombella blinked.

"Are you looking at your pictures again for the clues?" asked Lahla. "If Ernest and his brother are next, then I'm scared; I don't want anyone else to die."

"Thomas Fan, and Wendy Koopa had died already after Poochy," said Goombella, looking up at the shocked face of Lahla. "But we can't do anything."

"They're…dead?" she asked. But Goombella just stood up.

"Stay here Lahla. I need to go and find them, if it's possible."

"No, let me come---"

"There will be chaos going on, and stuff much worse. The only way for you to not freak is out is to just stay here, and I'll be back as quickly as I can." Lahla simply nodded her head, as Goombella hurried off with a pile of photos in her hand.

The noise was extremely louder than the first time she had entered. Goombella looked around at the people around her, trying to find her way through to the front stage. She stumbled into a large Koopa Troopa wearing a mix of clothing.

"Outta my way!" he bellowed, juggling a trio of boning knives. She fell to the ground, as a knife flew into the air from a sudden flip of his wrist. But he caught it without any hesitation, and Goombella hurried to her feet through the dancing crowd.

She was next to the front of the stage, but could not see any of two brothers at all anywhere. That was, until smoke suddenly rose from the ground, covering the entire stage until a row of people rose up from below. Out from underneath from below the floor were the two next victims.

"Ernest! Ernest!" she cried. But she wasn't heard over the thundering noise, and it seemed as if they were ignoring her. The noise erupted even more when a jazz guitarist suddenly appeared from behind the curtains, playing at full sound.

"Ernest! Over here!" she shouted. She looked around to discover a way to get one of the brothers' attentions, and picked up a magazine on the floor besides her and threw it onto the stage at them. One of the brothers, who turned out to be Ernest as Goombella had thought, was startled and fell back at the flying object, then looked at the crowd frantically to see who had just done such a strange and bizarre act.

A show girl stepping down from the spiraling stairs above them had gotten her shoe heel stuck under the wooden steps, and was attempting her best to escape. She fell through suddenly with a sudden shriek as a huge section of the stair case suddenly collapsed, and Dernest had no chance but to look up at the falling debris of wood and metal about to clang into him.

The intense noise suddenly collapsed as the section of the stairs crushed Dernest from above, stabbing him in many numerous places and crushing him splat against the floor, spraying blood among the many people, including his horrified brother close by. A ripple went through the crowd and erupted in horror as well, as Goombella found herself in a crowd of rushing people running for their own safety, as the performers on stage had immediately jumped away from the scene. Screams erupted in a second.

But the show girl was still dangling from high above on what was still left of the stairs. As Ernest, in horrified shock, slowly stepped towards his dead brother in front of him, he was taken aback to see the lady fall from above, and as Goombella let out a muffled scream, her high heels tore through Ernest's neck before she collapsed unconscious on top of him. His detached head rolled across the stag and fell among the still-left audience, who yelled simultaneously and ran away in the speed of light. The only things left on stage were three bodies, two of them insensible.

Immediately as Goombella turned around, still getting the horrid thoughts out of her mind, police entered from the opposite side of the room. People who still hadn't realized the catastrophe which had recently occurred were still enjoying the "party", but she saw someone at one side of the room who was running his fastest away from what she assumed was the authorities.

"Drew!" she yelled, running towards him. But he still wouldn't stop running, as he climbed onto a table full of equipment and food and ran across it, causing many objects to fall away at the huge mess. He finally got stopped as he tripped on the table cloth and fell forwards on his face onto the floor. Goombella suddenly remembered that he had done the exact same thing on his picture.

In his picture, his shirt had tugged down a tablecloth for the children's birthday party as he turned around, just as Goombella had flashed a picture. There were balloons in his picture, and a couple of kids sitting around, but the sudden turn of the red tablecloth had made a peculiar illusion effect: fire?

Drew slowly got up from the ground, rubbing his scratched face. He was standing in front of the table which Lahla had been staying on, and where she had destroyed the lava lamp.

The stereo on the table was already at the peak of malfunctioning, letting out a large zap and releasing smoke into the air. Finally, the lips of the radio opened up, and not long after did two discs shoot out at the speed of light, threatening to kill Drew. He ducked to the ground at the last second, as the discs immediately flew over him and high into the air.

The wires holding up a rather large piñata of a skull in the air were suddenly snapped off by the soaring discs, which made the heavy piñata to drop down onto the edge of confetti cannon used for the finale part of the Masquerade Show, which would never happen nor occur. But the cannon was pushed down, and instead of aiming to the ceiling, it was aiming right at the poor helpless prey on the ground, and the trigger was activated.

Before the fiery cannon was about to shoot and kill another, Goombella had already reached him before Death. She ran to him as fast as she could bring herself, grabbed his jacket and pulled him away, just as the stream of confetti was shot out at over one-hundred miles per hour, blowing away the table full of items and food like a piece of paper. As they both looked back, they saw smoke, and a large, busted cannon, along with part of the exterior floor destroyed and burnt to crisp. Drew looked at the effects, then at Goombella.

"You saved my life…again," he said, giving her a hug of appreciation. Goombella was surprised, but was all settled to see that she had saved her companion, whom had helped her greatly in the past week.

He was the one who knew what they were going into, and the one who had assisted her greatest, while Death made his fastest way down the list, and as more killings had passed, and as more secrets and succeeding moments were found, their friendship grew. And although Lahla would still always her best friend, she couldn't help feeling that Drew, too, was a better one to her.

From the time of the pitiful death of the taxi driver and the fiery intervene of Drew, six bodies, all traumatized in different, unimaginable ways, and were shipped off in an emergency helicopter to the Mushroom Kingdom. One other, a person with a snapped neck and a cracked face, and who had a remarkable sense of knowledge and an enormous obsession for water, was left behind when a musician had mistaken the coffin for a bass guitar case.

As the helicopter hovered its way across the Las Vegas Strip, a coffin fell out after a piece of the metal wall detached, containing the body of a very stubborn and spoiled victim who had almost found the good side of herself before her death, who had two large holes in her head, as if two sharp objects had punctured it. It landed on the thatched roof of a motel with the lightest and most softest POOMPH!

Not very soon after did another coffin suddenly fall out. It contained the body of a person who had poor grammar, as the reason was that he was raised young on the roads of Moo Moo Farm. As he suddenly won the lottery, he had enough money to finally attend to school, and this had too resulted in his video game obsession and his obsession with the electronic game "Conquer and Divide, and soon years later, he was accurately divided while in his favorite room: An arcade. The coffin crashed into the pavement floor of the private parking lot of the New York New York Hotel, but soon after, was picked up by a garbage truck and thrown with rotten bananas and rodents.

As it crossed the rocky plains of the Grand Canyon, the helicopter shifted to its side to avoid a large boulder, moving a coffin to its side and across the baggage carrier compartment. The coffin contained a body with a detached head, with the body's prized possession, a collared chain first-place prize of an Annual Punk-Off lying right besides it.

It was a leather collar sewn with the designs of sixes, with chain dangling below resembling the thin and metal designs of a raindrop, a thunderbolt, the sun, a crescent moon, and below all, a circle shaped bead with a crystal embedded to the center of it. No wonder it was easy enough to be trapped under an escalator. The coffin finally collapsed out when another coffin pushed it to the side, as the coffin plunged down to the rocky depths hundreds of feet below, breaking into numerous pieces.

While crossing high above the whimsical trees of a giant forest, a tree branch caught from below the baggage carrier compartment and punctured the bolts and screw, releasing a section of the floor away. Immediately, a coffin fell out as well, containing the body of a smart and intelligent person which had his brain literally burned out of his mind, and who had gone mentally retarded at the last few seconds before his demise. It vanished in the trees.

Another coffin fell too from where the previous one had fallen out. It contained the brittle, and nearly turned to ashes body of a hip cheerleader girl who used to previously be the girlfriend of a mass killer psychopath, and who had happened to never be aware of her surroundings, especially the day when the radio she was listening to had tumbled into her Jacuzzi. But none mattered as the body disappeared into the forest, shattering at the bottom as it made impact with the forest ground.

Before landing as it nearly approached four hours before midnight, the last and finally coffin had happened to fall through the back when its tail boom propeller was pushed back, cutting slowly an exit just big enough for it to slide through. The helicopter tilted backwards for momentum, and the coffin plunged down and out, but this time into the splashing waves of Gelato Beach. This was the body of an intelligent person who had a rotten attitude, and who had a life with no purpose. Unfortunately, he inhaled a bit too much from his briar pipe on the day of his death.

_SPLASH!_

The helicopter landed safely at the Mushroom Kingdom Airport, and as the confused and bewildered pilot found no coffins on board but just the evidence of numerous holes and openings, he assumed somebody had taken them out, for he believed he happened to fall asleep the minute he had landed in his helicopter, while the coroner had no other way to retrieve the coffins but to tear through with a large machine. So he signed their death certificates, gave them to the coroner he assumed had taken the bodies already, and as the slightly confused medical examiner looked at the pieces of papers one by one, the pilot went home satisfied.

**Thank you for reading, I will update...momentarily. Weiver Esaelp guys!**


	17. Chapter 17: Chasing Solutions

**_Chapter 17: Chasing Solutions_**

A knife zoomed across the air, right towards the torso of Goombella. She immediately jumped back and away as she turned to look at the person who had done such a thing: Ludwig was standing on the chair two tables down, his eyes bloodshot and his breath rapidly flowing from his flaming mouth. He stepped down to the ground.

Drew could sense the danger approaching, and he stood in front of Goombella. "He tried to kill me earlier," said Drew in his lowest voice towards Goombella. "He's going crazy." Goombella just stared into the eyes of Ludwig, as if she were stuck into a deathly trance.

"What did you do to Wendy?" Ludwig growled ferociously, his voice echoing through the empty area. "My father will be very pissed off at you guys when he learns the news that she's dead! Murdered by a bunch of losers!"

"But we didn't murder her! You did yourself!" Goombella nearly yelled back. She would have that of rewording her sentence, but at a time of being next on Death's list with a psychopath targeting her as well, she couldn't think at all.

"Look out!" shouted Drew, as Ludwig picked up another boning knife from the table besides him. Goombella ran for her fastest as the knife flew into the air like a football, barely missing her by a few inches, and as Drew leaped up at Ludwig, she headed directly to the stairs to the upper floor immediately.

"Stop it---Ludwig!" Drew shouted, struggling to hold his arms together. The knife in Ludwig's hand shone in diverse directions as they struggled, until Drew managed to throw Ludwig against the table behind them.

"Get away you killer!" Ludwig roared, as his knife was knocked out of his hands. "You deserve to die too!"

"Calm down…Ludwig, enough! Stop…Ludwig! Listen, stop right now---" With one mighty push, Drew was knocked backwards to the ground, hitting his head against the destroyed, brittle stereo, as it broke into pieces. Ludwig immediately ran after Goombella.

Drew got up, dazed. Frantically, he was lucky to see Goombella's handbag right besides him. "The pictures!" he realized. Without hesitation he ripped open her backpack, and saw a stack of photographs placed in the second pocket. He flipped through them, looking through all the other photographs one by one. Lahla's picture; he had no idea where she was. Ludwig and Wendy's picture; he saw the hook railing under the movie poster behind Wendy's head, and the House of Wax poster next to Ludwig. He found his own picture, and saw what looked like a large shoot of fire coming from the tablecloth. _"If Goombella saved me from looking at my picture," _he thought, _"Then it's my turn to do the same."_ He flipped over the final picture.

She was still on the line to ride, with a line of the landscape and buildings barely visible behind her. She looked startled and was stepping back as if she didn't know someone's was going to take her picture. Then there was the obvious clue. A long, blurry horizontal crack in the photograph was crossing Goombella's torso.

"_Where do I go now?" _Goombella said to herself in panic, running up another set of stairs. She found a small room with two elevators on the sides, and pressed the button. The light appeared, but flashed off before she could regain her breath, but continued down the hall to another flight of stairs. She let out a pitched shriek as she bumped into Ludwig right away, and Goombella fell backwards onto the carpet, as Ludwig fell back against the stair railings. Goombella backed a few steps away.

"You slaughterer! You'll pay right now, this second!" Ludwig threatened in a loud boom as he regained his steps quickly. Goombella ran back to another staircase leading up behind her, as Ludwig followed in his most sincere anger. He was running out of breath.

Goombella panted her way up the long flight of spiraling stairs until she reached the upper-floor balcony. She looked over the entire, gigantic area, and saw nearly nobody visible, but only the remains of smoke flowing from the confetti cannon and the debris and smashed wood on the front stage, plus the three bodies still visible on the stage, She saw far back away that there were still some people, either cleaning or having no idea what had occurred on the other side of the area and playing and gambling at ease. She quickly darted across the long hall, but a boning knife flew across the air and jabbed into the stair rail right in front of Goombella. She shrieked and climbed the set of stairs behind her.

Nearly out of breath and as weak as a feather, she reached the top step, and then took a relieving five second break. _What's with Ludwig? _she asked herself in panic, "_Has he gone mad?"_ At the sound of rapid footsteps and a threatening yell below, she darted down the red hall to her right.

She reached the end of the hall, but it wasn't the end as she thought, but had another longer, lengthy hallway to the left of her. As she was about to run down the long hallway on the right, she couldn't help but make notice of the large statue figure of an overlarged woman's face placed and stuck against the wall, which had numerous pointy spikes sticking out from its mouth and color-changing crystal eyes. Its height and length were three times as large as Goombella, but she immediately went the other direction of the eerie figure, but first, ducking under a metal chain

There were two stake posts on the sides of the face, and all the way on the other, dead end side of the hall was another one stake post. The three stake posts held a metal chain, stretching over sixty feet, around them, and as the two stakes next to the large face figure had the chain wrapped around them, the lone stake at the other end of the hall had the metal chain barely attached to it by a piece of scotch tape, which was tearing and soon to let go. The chain formation was shaped in a triangular form.

Goombella ran down the hall, but soon realized that at the end of the hall was emptiness except for single wood stake supporting the chain all around Goombella. She heard footsteps coming from the other hall which she had entered by, fast and paced footsteps. She was trapped with no place to go.

"Stop Ludwig! Stop doing this!" she beseeched helplessly, stepping away. The footsteps only increased.

"Please don't kill me!" she cried. She knew that Ludwig was just about to turn the corner and spot her.

With nowhere else to hide, she immediately ran her fastest further down the hall to the dead end, but stopped suddenly and stumbled back in alarm. The chain was disconnected from the stake post at the end of the hall, and exactly like a sling shot, the chain zoomed like a deathly blur across the long hallway. The sound of a whipping, metal swoosh was heard for only a second, coming rapidly nearer at Goombella, for she stood where she was in fright. The rapid, running footsteps she had heard earlier whom she thought was Ludwig had immediately appeared behind her.

"I got you!" Drew yelled, diving forwards with his arms wrapping around Goombella. The chain zoomed right over them as Drew pulled both of them to the ground, saving Goombella from her awful fate,

But Ludwig had appeared at the last second all the way at the end of the hall, behind the two of them. As he saw Drew running towards Goombella bringing her down to the floor, he had no time to hesitate but to step a few feet backwards in sudden panic. Although the chain had not ended up hitting him because he went behind the two stakes on both sides of him, he was pushed back enough into the large figure of the woman's head. Her crystal eyes had suddenly turned into a crimson red color.

They just stayed to the ground, as Goombella and Drew didn't even bother to lift their heads from the carpeted floor when they heard the disappearing and dying shout of Ludwig Van Koopa. The pointing spikes emitting from the mouth of the large woman's face had been driven through him, and Drew had the reluctant urge to turn around and see three long, skinny metal spikes sticking out of Ludwig's stomach, oozing with blood. Ludwig had the confused, blank stare across his face as his body slumped forwards, dead. He looked back away.

"Goombella?" Drew started, getting up from the ground slowly, "I think we can get a way to cheat Death."

"Where's Ludwig?" she asked suddenly, getting up from the ground. She turned around before Drew could warn her, and her she covered her mouth in shock.

"Just like in his picture," stuttered Goombella, turning away to look at the other, blank side of the hall instead of the bloody exit. "That woman's face on the wall looked just like the face on the House of Wax Poster, right besides Ludwig…"

Drew took the crystal out from his pocket. "Remember we were discussing about Yoshi as we were reading the articles about all the deaths before us? This crystal has 'Yoshi was the closest' marked on it like we saw earlier. I suddenly remembered he was a past victim in Princess Peach's situation. He died when he fell in his cooking pond in his restaurant when it malfunctioned. He got burned to death in water."

"Water…" realized and repeated Goombella, "That has something to do with this right? This crystal needed water to perform this certain effect for this message to appear. Yoshi was the closest to cheating Death, but how?"

"He was supposed to originally be dead by drowning in water in the first place," explained Drew. "Koops the psychopath had killed him by drowning, and Peach brought him back alive along with her other friends to---"

Goombella interrupted him and stood up suddenly from the ground. "Are you saying that when Peach revived her dead friends by using the machine of E. Gadd, Death was after them because of that? Because they weren't supposed to be alive?"

"Err, that's what Jill had told us in her report we read on the computer," said Drew. He continued as he saw no reply from Goombella.

"And plus, she had met Peach physically herself and learned all about it." Goombella thought it over in her mind, and rolled the information of Peach's situation with Death's Design. Something about it, which she could feel directly from her body, did not make sense at all.

"That can't be," Goombella said suddenly, her thoughts suddenly getting together. "Death doesn't go after you after you're revived. You start a new life. That whole thing Peach was talking about…Peach was lying!"

"What?" asked Drew in a tone of full confusion.

Before he could debate on what exactly Goombella had said out loud to him, they both saw something emerging from the other side of the hall, only a few feet away from them. The blank, wooden wall was melting slightly into a gooey substance which both Drew and Goombella had even seen before, and they backed up away in fright. The wall started to glow into an ominous shade, and they saw a figure, shrouded in a black cloak with all around him foaming gas spread, step out from the solid structure and float down onto the ground in a menacing fashion.

"You…you got to be kidding me," stuttered Drew. Goombella grabbed his hand in fear, and they both stood as still as statues as the figure flew floated slowly towards them. The gas gradually and conspicuously began to disappear, and the two of them stood face to face to the hooded and dark, murky Death.

* * *

**As you can see, the end is kind of near and is approaching as quick as Lahla's death. With all this work and stuff, my updating will be much less often, but to those who are new and just read this, I hope you like the story! Oh, I'm trying to break a review record so please…!**

**P.S. I'm planning another story, but I'm not sure if I should make it into a Mario theme. It's about people playing a game to get into college, with a twist of killing. I'm thinking of possibly a Neopets theme, despite I rarely play on that site these days? Thank you for reading this chapter.**


	18. Chapter 18: Falling Under Fate

**sniff...Enjoy...sniffle**

**_Chapter 18: Falling Under Fate_**

Goombella looked at Death, and Drew looked at Death. Death looked at the both of them. They were all as silent as a predator feasting its eyes on its next prey, until Drew, for no particular reason shattered the stillness which seemed to had wrapped the entire hotel.

"Heh, it's you," he blurted out. The figure nodded as Goombella stepped back. Drew tried again.

"Why are you suddenly visible before our own eyes?" asked Drew. The dark figure only nodded, slowly.

"Can't you speak, you ominous pile of shit?"

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!" bellowed Death from beneath his red-glowing eyes. "I have no intention of making you live! I am here to finish you off!" Goombella and Drew saw his glowing eyes looking far behind them, staring at the dead body of Ludwig, who was impaled through the three spikes. Death let out a menacing laugh.

"I caused that chain to let go," said Death, then raised his hand at Goombella and pointed to her. "And you, you cheated me again. You just had to get out of my way."

"That was me," pointed out Drew. Death turned to look at him in confusion.

"What I'm saying is," explained Drew. "I was the one who intervened for her. So I beat you." He grinned, as Goombella knew that Drew was playing along with him. Death looked at him in mere silence.

"True," he said. "But intervening isn't part of my style. I like the whole 'jumping down the list' technique. Now, any last words before I finish you off?"

Goombella's heart sank. She felt as if she had come all this way for nothing, only to fail at finding the answer to cheat Death. There she was, with Death facing her in front of her, and with no clue at the life-saving solution.

"We'll beat you," said Drew. "We'll find a way to cheat you." Goombella looked at Drew, and saw him taking out the white crystal from the back of his jeans. Her hopes were lightened up; the crystal had the answer.

"Any more last words, besides your idiotic ramblings of a lunatic?" Death questioned in his lowest, thundering voice. The two victims just stood there, not knowing what to say.

"_Please spare us," _thought Goombella, but she was too frightened to say it, and she knew he would never spare their lives.

"_Don't give me a painful death" _thought Drew, but he knew that Death would give him the complete opposite if he had said it out loud.

"Good," said Death. "I'm off to get Lahla now." He suddenly enlarged, and in a quick second, he vanished past them.

"Wait, no!" cried Goombella, suddenly remembering that her best friend was the next target. "Don't kill her! Don't!" She took a couple of steps down the hall before stopping in a feeling of bleakness and fright.

"We need to solve this now," said Drew. "Death is after Lahla. Come on, hurry!" They hurried off down the hall, looking at the dead body of Ludwig which had covered the entire area around him with pools of blood. They ran to the right and were going to go further downward the hall, but a falling torch had suddenly dropped from the upper floor. The two of them jumped back as the flames engulfed the entire carpet.

"This door!" Goombella cried, trying to bang open a wooden door besides them. Drew kicked the door with full force, and it fell forwards like an attacking Whomp, loud and heavy. A wooden staircase was revealed, leading all the way up to what they believed was the top floor. They took no hesitation when they heard the scream of a familiar person high above them.

"Lahla's up there," shouted Goombella. "Let's go!"

They ran up the stairs like mad, chasing up towards the top floor on the flight of spiraling stairs. Then there was the sudden sound of a loud snap from behind Goombella, and she looked behind her to see the fire, climbing up a pole supporting the long staircase. The entire staircase shifted down, causing Drew and Goombella to scream in surprise and grab onto the railing besides them. Debris toppled to the ground below.

"Is anybody here?" A worried voice from above at the exit of the stairs appeared. It was Lahla, stepping down the first few steps.

"Lahla!" shouted Drew. "Watch out!" But his warning came too late, as the entire wooden staircase shifted down again at an angle, sending Lahla toppling over the rail with an echoing shriek. After falling just a few feet in complete air, she managed to grab onto the long, large flag pole in the middle of the spiral staircase, just a few feet above where Drew and Goombella were standing. She clung her feet around the pole as well as she dangled helplessly.

"Help!" she screamed, grabbing onto the flagpole in panic as the entire staircase around her shifted down more at another angle, making Goombella and Drew lose their balance as pounds of debris fell from above them.

"Jump, Lahla!" cried Goombella. "Hurry up! You're next on the list!" Before Lahla could do anything further in saving her life, Drew acted quicker. He picked up a piece of wood from the debris, a long and delicate one. He examined it quickly, and raised his arm, and threw the piece of wood at Lahla's body. Lahla, clinging onto the flagpole, let go at the sudden hit at her, and with a shriek and a look of terror, she plummeted down to the ground fifty feet below them. The entire staircase was soon to plummet after as a fire was started below, and before Goombella could show her horrified feelings on Drew's action, the staircase began to fall apart starting at the bottom, and they both ran to the top. The amount of smoke rising into the air from below was enormous as Drew reached the exit at the top, then Goombella a few seconds after, then Drew shut the door behind them, only to hear the thundering crashes of the falling staircase, and the blazing sound of spreading fire.

Goombella stood there, looking at Drew, stunned. "What did you do..." she stuttered, scarcely able to speak. "Lahla…what did---"

"Trust me Goombella," demanded Drew in a serious voice. He pointed against the wall. "Stand over there, now."

"Dry Bones, what are you doing?" Goombella asked. But she did anyway, scared and panicked. Drew stood in front of her, in front of an open window with the entire remains of the Masquerade Ball Room behind him.

"Are the balloons in the air?" he asked. "Do you see them?"

"The machine hot air balloons are. Drew, you're scaring me---"

"Goombella, run to the roof after this," he said. "Right now, just stare at me. Whatever happens, do not take your eyes of me until I fall to the floor." She saw tears forming at the edge of his eyes, for some reason unknown to Goombella. Goombella stared directly at him as he had directed, scared and frightened.

Suddenly from behind, he pulled out the white crystal from his jeans pocket. Grabbing the crystal with both hands, he pushed it down edge first…into his chest. With a deafening groan of pain and struggling, Drew pressed the crystal into him further, as Goombella stood petrified, screaming out into the air as blood spurted everywhere from Dry Bones, as she backed away, screaming against the plastic wall. After a few disturbing and painful seconds of screaming and confusion, Drew fell to his knees, then fell forwards onto the ground with a lifeless face of shock. The blood-drenched crystal rolled away from his hand and in front of Goombella, as she gasped and stared at Drew. He had just killed himself. She couldn't help shrieking once more as she inadvertently stepped onto the crystal, crushing it with her foot into pieces.

"The…roof," Goombella said in chokes of horror. She couldn't move her legs from the ground to bring herself away. First, Drew kills Lahla, then himself. Her mind was spinning. With a shriek of despair, she ran up the flight of stairs behind her. There was a door at the top, with the word EXIT written in large red letters. Bringing herself back, she recollected her mind and pushed open the door.

The air was cold as winds shivered up Goombella's spine. She walked slowly around and found the edge of the building in front of her. As she looked down, the ground stared back at her a few hundred feet away. The lights from the windows lightened up the sky, and below, she could still see people far away on the ground. From where she was, she could see other buildings not too far away. She saw the Gameworks Arcade below with the giant statue of Coke, flooding the streets with light. She saw an airplane in the sky, flying over to the Las Vegas Strip airport which was visible in the horizon. Far away she spotted the Madame Tuassaud's Wax Museum full of cars and limousines, and farther besides it, a giant pyramid with a streaming light emitting from the tip was glowing against the blue glass; the Luxor Hotel.

Far away, past everything she had spotted familiar as memories was the Stratosphere Tower.

"_We were all meant to die that day,"_ she said to herself, as the lights of the tall hotel all flickered on at the same time in an eerie fashion. It stood over one thousand feet, and as she looked at it, she remembered what she felt on that fateful day.

"_That vision of falling,"_ Goombella said to herself. _"It's now."_

With the feeling of hope, fear, and determination, she stepped onto the raised edge of the building and jumped off from the structure, looking at the sparkling city below. Her memories flashed before her eyes, as she closed them tight and plunged down.

* * *

**A very confusing and mysterious ending to this chapter. Wow, I updated quicker than usual. For some reason I will take time to reply to reviewers:**

**FireKai Thank you for reviews! The thing about the coffins is simply that none of the dead bodies reached the final destination of Mushroom Kingdom. And that thing about Peach is another thing to be discovered.**

**LittleDude Great work with the list! Apparently it's now different.**

**Snowboarder9 Thank you, great to know!**

**GreatYoshiRider Don't worry, you're not next don't panic! Thanks!**

**Llppoo33 Lol also, I tried to make it more mild and less scary, oh well, I fail too much.**

**Someone! Wow, thank you! That made my day. **

**My other previous fic with that obnoxious Lakister who got his head sliced with a manhole cover is being reviewed (poked fun at) by Mystery Science Theater 5000** **by Hobbedluigi82. Can't wait!**


	19. Chapter 19: Ends Have Finishes

**!El finis!**

**_Chapter 19: Ends Have Finishes_**

The buzzing sound which strangely resembled the humming of an irritated bee was heard inside the room. She opened her eyes and looked at the white walls, and she felt where she was almost immediately. Her mouth was sore and painful as if it was scratched from the inside, and her arm was aching with pain. Then there was the shocking feeling of pain going through her body, as she got up and clenched her belly into her hands, rocking up and down on her bed.

"She's falling!" shouted the doctor, a young Koopa-Troopa in a white coat. "She's rising! Clear! Get ready for another burn!" He pressed the three buttons simultaneously once again, and this time the shock woke her up to her feet on the bed, and she stepped down from the thick mattress. There was a gas mask around her nose.

"Careful!" the doctor cautioned, "Remove the wires from you immediately." She looked down at her body and saw she was wearing a clear robe with barely any clothing, and she pulled away the wires attached to her body with sticky patches.

"Doctor," she started, dazed. "What happened to me? I know where I am and I last remembered that I was falling down…"

"You survived the drop," the doctor said. "When you're friend Goombella told us that you had fallen somewhere within the hotel staircase, we found you unharmed and unconscious among the huge amounts of rubble. A large flagpole had nearly killed you as it fell while we were attempting to get you out, but your friend Goombella saved you once again and pushed your cart out of the air."

"That mask covering your nose is emitting humid water into your lungs," the doctor explained more. "You inhaled vast amounts of smoke and ashes in your fifteen minutes of being trapped."

"Where's Goombella?" Lahla asked suddenly, "Is she okay?"

"She survived her jump off the building, from the very top," the doctor told her. "Unbelievable if we can say so ourselves. She landed on the large hot air balloon machine which was being brought out from the Masquerade Ball. When she landed, people caught her as she slid of the balloon twenty feet once again."

Lahla sat down back onto the bed behind her. She was exhausted, and was happy to be safe and alive. While grabbing for her life during the night before, her life flashed back into her mind in a second. She thought about her school, her friends, and her career dreams for her future. She thought about her mom and her sister; both family members dead and gone, and how she would meet them as she was thinking of how to finally rejoice with them if she were to die that day.

"Lahla," said Goombella from the door. The doctor smiled as Goombella ran up to her, and Lahla ran up to Goombella and the two friends rejoiced once again, with small tears in their eyes.

"I can't believe we both made it to the morning," said Goombella. "I had that horrible feeling, to be honest, that…" she paused, "…That at least one of us wouldn't make it."

"Never think that," reassured Lahla. "We're here right now, safe. We're both together."

"When Dry Bones threw that piece of wood at you…" her voice trailed off again. Lahla looked at her, worried.

"Drew," whispered Goombella. "Drew is still alive, after he tried stabbing himself."

"What are you talking about?" Lahla asked.

Goombella explained everything she remembered to her. "The two Brothenians brothers are dead. So is Ludwig Koopa. Then Death approached us in a physical form and threatened to get us all, and soon disappeared to get you." Lahla looked at Goombella in shock and confusion.

"You left off when you fell down and unconscious when Drew hit you with a piece of debris and caused you to fall."

"But why would he do that?"

"That was what I was thinking," Goombella told her. "After we escaped the collapsing staircase, he then said to me to look at him and make sure he was standing proper with the background visible behind him. Then he took out this crystal, which we had received from a past victim on our own two days ago. He stabbed himself in the chest and tried to kill himself. When he fell to the floor covered with blood, I thought he was already dead."

"He told me to go to the roof of the building before that, so I did. Then it struck me familiar. The numerous visions I had been receiving in the past week of me falling from a building was suddenly remembered. I knew this was the time, so I jumped without hesitation."

"I closed my eyes, and the next second I opened my eyes, I had hit something soft at full impact, then slipped off and was caught by a few circus actors. I was still wide awake."

"I told the police and other people that you were inside. We had brought the both of you out."

"The doctor said you saved me as the giant flagpole almost killed me," said Lahla.

"I did," said Goombella in a voice of happiness and sadness mixed together. "But Drew wasn't dead yet, the doctors had reported to me. They said they would bring him immediately to the hospital at the huge amount of blood loss he received. And now, the night had passed as I barely got enough sleep, and now it's 6 o'clock in the morning. And I have one more thing to tell you." She pulled out three pieces of paper from her pocket, each with numerous prints and typing on it.

"What are those?"

"Plane tickets," said Goombella. "At ten o'clock in the morning. We have to go as soon as possible. This is the last flight back to Eastern Mushroom Kingdom for this entire month."

"Good morning ladies once again, the sun is burning our heads again," said the doctor as he entered the room and closed the curtains. "Good news; your friend Dry Bones has stirred awake for a second. His eyes opened."

"That's great," said Goombella, not knowing how to express her retained happiness, "Thank you very much…"

"Doctor Steven Wiser Jr, there's the patient in Room 39 who is looking for you," called a voice from outside.

"I have to go," said the doctor. "Follow me." The two friends followed him anxiously as he led them to a door across the hall, which displayed the number 26. "Dry Bones is inside here." With that, he left running to the other end of the hall. Lahla looked at the doctor in a strange way, as if he seemed strangely familiar.

But Goombella looked straight at the door in front of them, and turned the knob. She opened the door carefully like an explorer opening the door of a Mayan temple and saw the room. There was a vase with flowers in it in the corner, and a bed similar to the one Lahla was sleeping on. Goombella ran up to the bed.

On the bed was Drew, breathing heavily but fine. His arm rose up, as his claw scratched the air. His eyes opened drearily as saw Goombella.

"Hello," he said in a weak tone. Goombella's heart seemed to enlighten with joy, as she had never felt happier before in her life.

"Drew, you're okay!" she nearly shouted. Lahla came up next to the bed as well and was filled with joy. The three of them were all in the same room, fine and well. Death had not taken them, and they were all fine.

That was, until Drew spoke again.

"Hello…other person," he said to Lahla as he saw her appear into view. Goombella and Lahla exchanged glances, confused for a moment.

Lahla let out a laugh. "Drew, you're funny," she said. "I'll get your breakfast; you must be hungry like heck from not eating." She noticed a tray of breakfast on the table on the other side of the room and immediately went to get it. She saw Goombella look at her with a look of worry.

"Hey, Drew," said Goombella. "I'm so happy that you're okay. I thought you were lost forever last night. And now we're all here."

"Who are you?" Dry Bones said back. "Who's Drew?"

Goombella looked at him. Drew's eyes were different, and she could tell that they were not his comical eyes which usually revealed his jokes and tricks all the time. His eyes were serious and bewildered. They seemed to stare past her.

"It's me, Goombella," she told him. "Remember?"

"I got your breakfast," said Lahla in a joyful tone, about to set the deliciously prepared breakfast besides him. Drew looked back at her, and Lahla looked at Drew in deep uncertainty.

"Drew!" said Goombella, grabbing him at the shoulders. "Look at me, it's Goombella and Lahla. We're in---"

"Who are you people!" he shouted suddenly, kicking the breakfast tray away onto the ground. The entire meal splattered against the floor as Lahla backed away, scared. Drew got up and picked up the chair besides the bed and held it up in defense.

Before Goombella could talk once more, he threw the chair down to the ground at a rolling desk, causing Goombella and Lahla to jump and step away from him in fear. The rolling desk moved across to the door, hitting the door from which they entered even further open as it knocked into a shelf, causing a tiny and dangerous object to drop down onto the desk.

Staples shot into the air and aimed directly at Lahla's neck. As Goombella took the tray into her hands and threw it vertically in the air in front of Lahla, twelve sharp, small pieces of metal pierced into the metal tray at a fast rate. But the tray in the air passed Lahla quickly, and four staples managed to shoot into Lahla; two in her chin and the other two piercing her closed mouth together between her lips. She fell back in pain as the staples sunk into her, and Goombella ran over to her side.

The door was suddenly opened again. Two police officers and a person who seemed to be a doctor entered the room without notice. Drew suddenly looked at them, his face settling down to a confused and blank expression.

"Drew Discet, you are now ready to go to court," said the police officer. "Please step down from the bed and follow us." The Para-Troopa looked at Goombella and Lahla at the side of the room.

"You people all right? Has this person caused any trouble?"

"No, no, we're okay," said Goombella. "She just got hurt." The police officer grabbed Drew and stepped towards the door.

"Where are you bringing him?" she asked quickly.

"He's going to trial in the Vegas Courthouse," explained the doctor.

"To court! For what?"

"He's being accused of contributing to these deaths happening in Las Vegas," said the doctor. "This is serious. He's been guilty from the start."

"No wait," said Goombella, going up to the police officer. "This is all a mistake. He's been with me this week and has nothing to do with this."

"With all the evidence contributing to this, he's been at nearly every site so far with the deaths," the police officer explained quickly. Goombella grabbed onto Drew, as the three of them looked at Goombella.

"You can't do this," she begged. "His whole memory is erased! We all have a flight to go on for today, and this is the only flight back home!"

"Young lady, let go of the person," demanded the officer. Goombella tried to shove the arm of the officer away, but he grabbed on firmly to Drew.

"I will alert the security now!" shouted the doctor, as the officer grabbed Goombella away with no feeling of mercy.

"He doesn't remember anything!" she cried. Drew looked at her in a frightened, yet repulsed way as he was brought out. The doctor pushed Goombella from getting any closer, but she ran towards the elderly doctor and knocked him to the ground. Lahla looked up and saw Goombella head out of the room.

Goombella ran across the hall and saw the pole officers bring Dry Bones out to the main entrance. The next thing she felt was numerous people tackling her to the floor, and she stuck out her hand as Drew was brought away from sight.

"Drew!" she cried, only for her voice to become muffled from the people piling above her. Her heart was throbbing with anger and grief as she was brought back. She was broken. Her life was tearing, and she broke down into tears.

Tears of ending and sorrow.

**Epilogue**

**Goombella Cheney and Lahla Oostelbos returned back to their proper homes from Las Vegas on May 16, 2003. Drew Discet remained in Las Vegas for his immediate court trial.**

**Goombella became highly depressed the following week, fearing over Drew as she tended to break out into hysterics and chaos every so often.**

**After having counseling and therapy for almost three years, she moved away from her family suddenly without warning, living out on lonely streets located the rural places of Mushroom Kingdom, telling people who happen to stop by in her presence the story of Death's curse.**

**Lahla, seeing Goombella's erratic behavior as a threat, broke her friendship quietly the next week with her best friend. After unsuccessfully trying to access her sister's bank account for two years, she enrolled in the Kim Tissamo Pian University, and dropped out after only three months. **

**With nearly nowhere to turn, she moved in with an old friend of hers; a three-room cabin located on the docks of Noki Bay.**

**Drew, with no lawyer and nearly no remembrance of the events which had occurred, was found guilty for the bizarre deaths of his friends and others, and was also found guilty by the officials in contributing to the Insanity ride disaster. **

**He was sentenced to over sixty years in prison, and a payment of thirty-thousand coins due at the time of his release. After having his wound surgically healed, he was sent immediately to jail. Within only five years to follow he was known as one of the top ten infamous murderers of all time. **

**He remains in his cell, thinking his hardest to remember his lost memories as he only feels despair and hopelessness. Every year, his memory is slightly recollected.**

(The words "THE END" follow).

* * *

**Alas, what an ending to this death-filled story. Oh and today is my birthday, October 8th! Nothing much, but please consider a review if you wouldn't mind!**

**Is this the fate of the characters? Will they simply end up in misery for the rest of their lives? Just watch out for later…..**


End file.
